Brothers
by balthezarian
Summary: Vegeta and Tarble deal with the issues of having a long lost brother.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Okay! Okay! I owe you guys a million chapters on a million different stories, but I caught the flu (standard, not swine!) and for the life of me, I couldn't type accurately until a week or so after the fever broke. Seriously, I'd think "J" and hit "Q". I was waaaaaaay off. Anyway, in my feverish state, all I could do was daydream. This one-shot is one of the many, many, many odd things that popped into my head.

And yes, I am updating my other stories within the week. Please, have patience!

**Brother**

As the capsule jet landed at Capsule Corp, no one said a word. The tension level in the vehicle was so high that even Trunks did not dare to open his mouth. He had thousands of questions, all screaming in his mind to be asked, but he wasn't stupid enough to actually ask them. No, he would never dare interrupt family tension time with his questions. He had made that mistake once before, and he was smart enough to know never to do it again.

The lavender haired prince glanced at the uncle that sat beside him. There was no mistaking that Tarble was, if nothing else, related to Vegeta. No one looked that much alike by freak chance. In fact, if not for the size difference between them, and the fact that his uncle had bangs and his tail, Trunks wasn't a hundred percent sure he would have been able to tell the two of them apart.

In all his life, Trunks had never heard of this long lost uncle of his. He had always assumed, as had everyone else in the group, that Vegeta was an only child. After all, who had a little brother and never said anything about him?

Trunks spared a glance at his father, who was still sitting motionless in the passenger seat up front. The young boy could not understand his father's reaction to the entire situation. Two brothers had been reunited after long, hard years, and they weren't speaking to each other. And yet, they didn't seem to be mad at each other, either. Trunks was very confused.

Up in the driver's seat, Bulma was only having slightly more luck deciphering the silence between her husband and brother-in-law. Almost forty years had passed since the two brothers had been in the same room with each other, and given how young Tarble looked, they probably had never had a chance to truly bond. The heiress wasn't entirely convinced that the two had ever actually met before, and that maybe they only used their obvious family traits as factors for recognition.

"So," she said, turning the engine off and facing her passengers in the back, "why don't the three of you head inside. Trunks, you be good and show your aunt and uncle where the kitchen is. I'm sure they would enjoy some refreshments."

Catching on to what his mother was _really_ asking, Trunks hopped to his feet. "Oh, of course! Uncle Tarble, Auntie Gure, if you would be so kind as to follow me…"

Tarble glanced at his older brother, who hadn't moved a muscle since they had climbed aboard, but opted to follow his nephew all the same. He, too, could sense that Bulma and Vegeta had something to discuss with one another, and he, too, did not wish to be nearby when that happened. "Thank you, Trunks," he quickly said, following suit. If Gure was aware of the tension, she never showed it as she followed her husband and nephew into the compound.

As soon as they were alone, Bulma let out a tired sigh. "Okay, why are you pouting?"

Vegeta glared at his wife. "I do not pout."

"Oh, sure you do," Bulma insisted. "You stare at a blank spot in the distance, you cross your arms, you stop talking, and you occasionally offer us a glare if we poke fun at you. Admit it, you pout."

After waiting for a few moments of silence, the scientist decided to probe further. "You talked more to Tarble than anyone else when he first got here, and now you won't even look at him. Vegeta, what's wrong?"

The prince shifted his gaze ahead once more, continuing what he insisted was not pouting. Suddenly, he shoved his door open and stormed out, determination and anger shining in his eyes.

Slowly, Bulma undid her safety belt. She wasn't sure what was going on, but she knew it couldn't be anything good.

///

"Your estate is impressive," Tarble commented, staring at the enormous kitchen.

Trunks simply offered a bored shrug. "Yeah, it's okay, I guess," he answered. "I mean, the place is frickin' huge, but we really only use, like, ten percent of if."

Tarble seemed confused. "That little?" he asked. "If you have so much space, why do you choose not to use it?"

"Oh, we do use it, from time to time," the young boy clarified. "But only when we've got an entire alien race that needs housing for an extended period of time. My actual family just doesn't need that many rooms."

Gure smiled at the boy. "Your family seems very nice," she sweetly said. "I am so happy to get to know them."

Opening the refrigerator and knowing they could not see his face, Trunks smirked. "Well, let's just see if you feel the same way _after_ you get to know them."

"Oh, everyone says that about their families," the tiny woman giggled. "I am certain that yours cannot be _that_ bad."

Trunks dropped a large amount of food on the table and turned to his aunt. "Okay, but let me give you the rundown now so that we don't scare you out of your mind. First of all, there's Mom. Now, she can be really, really nice if you catch her in a good mood, but you better run like hell if you catch her in a bad one. This woman has mood swings that would scare the caretakers of Hell." The boy paused to look at his uncle. "If she seems worked up about something, cover your ears and run."

"Cover my ears?"

The youngest prince rolled his eyes. "She's a screamer," he bluntly said. Gure blinked at the phrase, and Tarble had to fight from laughing at the entendre. Fortunately for both of them, Trunks didn't seem to notice. "She can get really, really loud, and she screams right in your ear. I'm guessing you hear as well as Dad and I do, and if that's true, it's gonna hurt. A lot."

Tarble nodded quickly. "Protect the ears. Got it."

"Now, Grandma is always nice and always happy, and to be honest, that's what's scary about her."

Gure stared at her nephew, confused. "Why is being happy scary?" she genuinely asked.

"Oh, you'll see," Trunks replied. "Grandpa's not too bad. He's fairly quiet and spends most of his time in the lab, but unless it has to do with science, his attention span isn't very long. So, you know, try not to be offended if you say something to him and his response has nothing to do with what you were talking about."

Tarble and Gure exchanged a glance. "Okay," Tarble slowly said. "How about my brother?"

Trunks looked confused. "You want to know what my dad is like?" he asked.

"Yes," the elder prince responded. "What is my brother like?"

The boy saw something and scooted to the side. "Um, I get the feeling you're about to find out…"

Poor Tarble never got a chance to ask what his nephew meant before he felt an iron grip clamp down on his shoulder. With fear in his eyes, he looked up into his brother's angry face. "Brother?" he quietly asked.

Vegeta glared fiercely at his younger brother, but didn't say a word. Instead, he aggressively grabbed the younger prince's arm and hauled him roughly out of the room.

"Oh, dear," Gure said in a worried tone. "What's going to happen?"

Trunks smirked at his aunt. "Apparently, Dad feels like communicating."

///

"Brother, where are you taking me?" Tarble asked, his fear in his eyes as he tried to reestablish his footing. "Brother?"

Vegeta remained silent, forcefully dragging his brother through the complex hallways of the compound. Poor Tarble could not even walk under his own power at the angle he was being pulled at.

They arrived at a large silver door, and Tarble could feel his heart leap to his throat. He could recognize enough of the mechanisms on the outside of the room to conclude that inside _must_ be some form of secret lab or torture chamber. The number of cameras in the area, the levels of security his brother was going through, the fact that is was unbelievably out of the way from the rest of the house…what else could it be?

With a hiss, the door slid open. "Get in there," Vegeta growled. He shoved Tarble so hard that the younger prince finally did fall over completely. Vegeta entered the room and slammed the door shut, locking it angrily behind him.

In all his life, Tarble had never felt so much fear. Even while on the run from Abo and Cado, he had managed to stay at least somewhat calm. But sitting there, in the presence of a man more powerful than any other he had ever come across, watching that man furiously glare at him, any and all calmness fled.

"Brother, if only you would tell me what is wrong…"

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

Tarble blinked in surprise. "But why?" he sincerely asked. "Is that not who you are?"

"If you are asking if we share genetic material, then yes, we are," he snarled. "But if you are asking if you can just show up one day and expect me to just accept _this_, than you are sorely mistaken."

The younger prince looked both surprised and hurt. "But…but why can you not treat me as your brother?"

"Where the hell have you been?" Vegeta snapped.

Tarble looked confused as he finally started to pull himself to his feet. "What are you talking about?" he whispered.

Vegeta swiftly closed the gab between the two of them and roughly grabbed his younger brother's wrist. In one swift movement, he tore the other's glove off. "Do you see this?" he snarled.

Looking at his hand, Tarble shook his head. "Brother, what are you trying to get me to see?"

"I told you to stop calling me that," he hissed, shoving the hand in the younger one's face. "Look at your hand and tell me what you see."

"I…" the little prince stammered, "I see my hand…"

"And what does that look like to you, Tarble?" Vegeta growled, shaking the hand again.

The poor prince was both confused and frightened. "Broth…Vegeta, it's just my hand," he insisted.

"Is it a well used hand?" the older brother hissed. "Is it one that has been worked to the bone? Is it one that has been in a thousand battles? Is it one that is covered with calluses?"

The smaller prince flinched at his brother's anger. "No," he quietly answered. "It's…it's a smooth hand."

"And what kind of life," Vegeta went on, shoving the arm away, "allows a man of thirty nine years of life, to have hands without a single damn imperfection on them?"

Tarble held on to his wrist, staring at the forming bruise that was forming on his wrist. "An easier one than you had," he softly admitted. "But if you are trying to imply that my life has been easy, then you are mistaken. Remember, I came to you for help because I was being hunted by Abo and Cado."

"And for how long have those two been hunting you?" the elder prince demanded. "How long have they been making your life difficult?"

Starting to let his frustration at his treatment show, Tarble huffed, "Years, brother. They have hunted me for several years."

"How many is several? Three? Five? Twenty?"

Shifting his weight uncomfortably, Tarble huffed. "Four years, Vegeta. They hunted us for over four years, okay?"

Once more closing the gap between the two of them, Vegeta shoved his brother up against the wall of the gravity room. "And you knew that I was here, didn't you?" he hissed.

"Brother, I…"

"DIDN'T YOU?"

Shaking in fear, Tarble fought to keep his eyes on his older brother's face. "Yes," he answered as firmly as he could manage. "But brother, I…"

Vegeta slammed a hand against the wall, silencing his brother. "Why the hell didn't you tell me?" he demanded. "Why didn't you come to me? Why did you wait until it was absolutely necessary for _your_ fucking benefit to let me know you were even _alive_?"

All of the color drained from the smaller man's face. "What?"

Backing off slightly, but still clearly agitated, Vegeta turned away from his brother. "For years, I thought I was the only Saiyan left. For years before that, I thought that I had no family. I had no one to turn to, no one to trust, no one who actually understood me _at all_. And what, Tarble, were you doing all these years that was so damn important that you couldn't bother so much as letting me know you still existed?"

"Uh…" Tarble stuttered, glancing down and to the right, "I, uh…well, you were with Frieza for a really long time…"

"And that ended twelve years ago," Vegeta interrupted. "Clearly you knew that, since you knew where to find me. What else did you have?"

"Damn it, Vegeta, it's not like you were out looking for me!" Tarble challenged back.

"I didn't think you were alive!" Vegeta shouted. "Our mother was only halfway through gestation when I was sent off to Frieza and Vegetasei was destroyed! You had never been born, and our parents died with the planet. As far as I knew, you were inside her when she died. How the fuck could I have known that you weren't there with them?"

Tarble glared at his big brother. "Well it's not like you even _tried_ to find out!" he retaliated.

"_Tried_?" Vegeta asked incredulously. "I was nine years old and had just found out that my family, my kingdom, and my entire planet were nothing more than space dust. And I found out from the son of a bitch who turned them _in_ to space dust, and then decided to make my life hell until his ended! When, Tarble, could I have gone out looking for you, even if I'd had the _slightest inkling_ that you were out there?"

Lunging forward, Tarble shoved his brother. "Why do you even care?" he shouted back. "Everyone in the entire universe knows that the great Prince Vegeta doesn't believe in family, friends, or any form of companionship. Why would I want to go out of my way to hunt you down only to have to call me a weakling for giving a damn about you?"

"Well, you sure made a hell of an effort to find out!" the taller Saiyan shouted, batting his brother into the wall. "Did it escape you completely that maybe, _maybe_, after decades of forced servitude and no where to turn, I _might_ have been needing _someone_ to help me find stability?"

The anger that had been building up in the smaller Saiyan vanished even faster than it had started. "What are you talking about?"

Once again trying to reign in his anger, Vegeta took a large step back. "You have no idea how fucking lucky I was that the woman is as crazy as she is," he growled. "She was just insane enough to put up with me and challenge me without being afraid of me, and she was the only one in the universe who gave me a real chance."

Taking his own step back, Tarble tried to point out, "Kakarot…"

"Wanted to give more chances to the Ginyu Force and to Frieza himself," Vegeta spat. "He wanted be to be 'better', not to be me."

Slowly, Tarble nodded in full understanding of what his brother had been saying. "She passed no judgment on you for your flaws," he softly said, "and tried to actually understand _you_. I do understand, brother, and I am sorry that I did not take the opportunity to come and see for myself what you were like."

"For the last time," Vegeta said in a deep, slow voice, "do not call me that."

"But why?" Tarble asked. "We _are_ brothers!"

"In genetics only," the elder prince growled. "Some day we may be more, but until that day comes, do not refer to me as such."

A hurt look crossed Tarble's younger features. "I do not understand," he softly said. "What is wrong with using a phrase to establish familial relations?"

Vegeta caught his brother's eyes, and held then in his own gaze. "Look, there's a really long story behind this, but you are not the first completely unexpected family member I have ever had magically showing up in my life and demanding that I fit some preconceived role based on such a title. It has happened before and I…it did not end particularly well for either of us."

"I still do not believe that I understand," Tarble slowly answered, "but I shall abide by your request, on one condition."

"I do not make deals with people I don't know," Vegeta growled.

"Then get to know me," Tarble demanded. "I will refer to you however you wish, so long as you give me a legitimate chance to form a brotherly bond with you. A chance, Vegeta. That's all I ask."

The elder prince hesitated for a moment. He was unsure of how he felt about the entire situation. A small part of him wondered what it would be like to have an actual sibling, a pureblooded family member to bond with. Another part still felt betrayed by the idea of being left alone until there was no way to avoid it. But the part that won out was the one that thought about how Bulma would react to finding out he had turned down such an offer.

He shuddered as he thought of the horror that could bring.

"Very well," he finally answered. "But if you wish to bond with me, be prepared to spend a lot of time in this room."

Taking in his surroundings again, Tarble finally asked, "Yes, I've been meaning to ask you, Vegeta, just what the hell this room was…"

"Where I train under hundreds of times Earth's gravity," he boasted with a smirk, turning to leave the room. "I hope you have been keeping up with your training."

Tarble gulped. In the environment he had been raised in, serious training had never been necessary. He had learned how to fight and stayed active for fun, but his abilities were barely higher than a completely untrained Saiyan. There was no discipline in his technique, and from what little he had gathered of his brother's power, his strength was lacking at best.

As he watched his brother leave, a small smile crossed Tarble's features. He had come to the planet hoping to find the ultimate weapon to use on his enemies, and nothing more. But perhaps, if he was lucky, he just might end up with the full family he had always hoped for.

/\/\/\

Author's Note: Okay, a part of me wants to just end it there, and a part of me wants to turn this into another multi-chapter story. Any thoughts?


	2. Chapter 2

Bulma looked up from the vegetables she and Gure had been chopping as Tarble entered the room. "Have a good talk?" she asked, laughter apparent in her voice.

The short Saiyan blushed, but he gave his sister-in-law a polite bow. "Yes, thank you," he answered. Glancing around the kitchen, he clasped his hands together. "Is there anything that I can assist you with?"

The heiress raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you sure you're Vegeta's brother?"

Before the suddenly flustered prince could answer, Trunks came barreling into the room. "Hey, you're not dead!" he announced with a smile on his face. When everyone looked confused, the youngest prince rolled his eyes. "It's not like I thought Dad would _deliberately_ try to kill him! It's just that the GR is an intense place and Uncle Tarble doesn't exactly seem like the toughest fighter in the world."

"Trunks!" Bulma hissed, glaring at her son.

The boy flinched back slightly. That tone meant that he had crossed a line and needed to uncross it immediately. "I'm sorry, Uncle Tarble," he apologized in the most sincere voice he could muster. "I did not mean to indicate that you were, in any way, lacking in your skills as a fighter. I am sure that your talents are numerous and wonderful, and I look forward to learning about all that makes you who you are, regardless of fighting ability."

From the counter, Gure giggled into her hand, watching the boy slink out of the kitchen. "He has that speech well memorized well."

"He better," the scientist grumbled, turning back to the vegetables. "He's certainly had to say it enough…"

The tiny woman giggled again, also returning to work. "Trunks seems like a good kid, though. He's been very kind to us, and seems very bright."

"And he's right," Tarble added. "I'm not even close to being a strong fighter."

Snorting, Bulma put down her knife and turned to her in-laws. "Right or wrong, he should not have said it. It was a rude thing to say, and I really am sorry if he hurt your feelings with it." She rolled her head to the side, stretching out her neck. "Sometimes I wish that boy came with a mute button. Or, if nothing else, a shut up filter."

A couple minutes passed in silence before Bulma finally asked the question that had been burning in her throat for the past hour. "So, do you two have any children?"

Tarble looked away for a moment, but Gure just casually said, "Nope."

Another pause came and went before the heiress asked her follow up. "Do you want them?" When neither of them said anything, Bulma raised her eyebrows. "_Can_ you?"

"The boy is chastised for theorizing about fighting potential, but you may ask people you've just met about their reproductive capabilities?"

All three occupants of the room turned to the doorway where the eldest prince was, leaning against the frame. "When did you get here?" his wife asked.

"About ten years ago," Vegeta responded, entering the room all the way. "Honestly, woman, for all the crap you give the rest of us about the right time and place to discuss things, you really are an idiot."

"It's okay," Tarble assured his brother. "She wondered about something and she asked about it. It is nothing to worry about."

Bulma smiled at her little brother-in-law. "Thank you."

Bowing slightly in return, he gave her a smile. "You are welcome." He turned once more and gave his brother a sad smile. "It is in no way her fault that Gure and I have no children."

"And I was just curious!" Bulma snapped. "I mean, at least humans and Saiyans have extremely similar physiology with one another. It was nothing short of a miracle that we happen to have the same number of chromosomes and are genetically compatible! For all we know, it could be genetically impossible for Saiyans to breed with…with…"

"Methulians," Gure filled in. "And we honestly don't know whether or not our races are capable of breeding with one another."

"Oh?" the scientist perked. "Have you never done any form of genetic testing? If you want, I could just draw some blood to see if you have a matching chromosome number…"

Gure simply shook her head. "No, thank you," she politely declined.

But Bulma was not willing to give up. "Really, it would be no trouble at all!" she insisted. "In fact, it wouldn't take more than about fifteen…"

"Woman!" Vegeta interrupted. "Take the hint!"

"We cannot have children with one another, regardless of genetic compatibility," Gure softly spoke.

Bulma felt horribly embarrassed. "Oh, I am so, so sorry," she apologized. "I didn't realize that you couldn't…"

"Not her," Vegeta interrupted, glancing at his brother. "Him."

The heiress blinked, extremely confused. "How…when…how could you possibly know that?"

Tarble looked toward the floor as he took a seat at the table. "We cannot have children because I…I can't…I never…"

"Because he never went through puberty," Vegeta finished. "That is why they do not have children, and that is why he looks barely older than our son when he's the same age as Kakarot."

Taking a seat far from his brother, the elder prince continued the explanation. "When a Saiyan child is growing up, they are trained to fight and excel in extreme physical competition from a young age. As they near their mid teen years, the glands that cause the change to adulthood form and develop in their bodies. In order for them to activate, these glands need a near constant flow of hormones that are produced through high levels of physical exertion."

He got to his feet and pulled a large bottle of water from the refrigerator, taking a large gulp from it. "During this phase of life, Saiyans crave more demanding, and more dangerous, activities, attempting to satiate the body's need for hormones and growth. That's why teenage Saiyans are particularly dangerous. They are wild and reckless, just trying to keep up with that need. As they get older, it slows down, but it does not stop completely until full adult stature has been reached, usually in the late thirties."

"However," he continued, "if a Saiyan does not go through enough rigorous physical activity, those glands are never properly stimulated, and maturation does not take place. Since Tarble is clearly not a fighter, he never took his training seriously."

"Our world was peaceful," Tarble pointed out. "There was no need for fighting."

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "In any event, you never actually pushed yourself physically, which is why you are still a child." He snorted, taking a sip from his drink. "They can't have kids because he is the physical equivalent of a twelve year old."

Bulma blinked, desperately trying to process the information she had just been given. "So, you're telling me that without rigorous exercise, Saiyans never grow up?"

"Basically, yes." Vegeta confirmed. "However, as staying in that state can shorten the lifespan significantly, his ass is going to be in that gravity room every day from here until he's actually an adult."

Bulma looked almost horrified at the notion. "Vegeta!" she gasped. "You can't do that to sweet little Tarble!"

"First of all," the prince countered, his annoyance at the situation more than apparent, "I have already discussed training with him and he has already agreed. And secondly, his my _look_ like a child, but he's thirty nine! Stop looking at him like he's a child!"

Huffing, Bulma picked her knife back up and aggressively began to slice up the vegetables. "Honestly, Vegeta, I don't know why you have to be so opinionated about everything!"

"Yes, because you _never_ have an opinion about _anything_," the prince shot back.

Quickly getting to his feet, Tarble grabbed his wife's arm. "Um, perhaps they do not wish for us to observe this…"

From behind him came a short laugh as Trunks entered the room again. "Oh, please," he said with an eye roll. "They do this all the time. It's when they're _nice_ to each other for a long time that you need to be nervous. That usually means at least one of them is about to snap." The boy wove through the group of adults to grab a snack out of the fridge. "If anything, this means that I'm going over to Goten's tonight so they can wrestle."

"Wrestle?" Gure asked with a giggled.

"Yeah, they wrestle all the time," the little prince groaned, popping some food into his mouth.

Tarble smirked up at his older brother. "All the time?"

"Okay, this discussion is over!" Bulma shouted, dropping her knife and turning to the rest of her family. "Anyone who is not here to cook, get out of the kitchen!" Waving her hands, she began to try to shoo the men out of the room. "Go on! Get out if you don't cook!"

Exchanging a wicked look, Trunks and Vegeta each grabbed one of Bulma's arms and pulled her out of the kitchen. The heiress yelped as she found herself tossed on the couch, and a string of mild obscenities began to flow from her mouth as her husband and son returned to the kitchen. As Bulma's protests escalated, Trunks playfully called back, "You said it yourself, Mom! If you can't cook, stay out of the kitchen!"

"You don't know how to cook either!" Bulma shouted, getting to her feet and adjusting her skirt.

Winking at his uncle, Trunks grabbed the phone. "Sure I do," he said with a smirk. "Speed dial 7!"

Tarble and Gure stared wide eyed at the entire display. "Is this how a normal evening here goes?" Tarble asked wide eyed.

"Actually," Vegeta replied, watching as Trunks flew to the ceiling to keep the phone away from his mother, "this is fairly quiet for us." As he watched his son finish ordering dinner, he gave his brother a nudge. "Eat your fill tonight and rest well, because you're meeting me at four tomorrow morning to begin your real training."

Tarble looked up at his brother and smiled. "I look forward to it, broth…Vegeta. I only have one question."

"Hn?"

"What is four in the morning?"


	3. Chapter 3

The evening wore on, and soon enough, everyone had retired to their designated room. As the others began dozing off, Bulma simply sat at the edge of her bed, looking at her husband as he changed into his sweatpants for the night.

"So," she began, "you have brother, huh?"

Sighing, Vegeta pulled his tee shirt on and sat down next to his wife. He knew this conversation was coming, but that didn't mean he was at all ready for it. "Yes," he simply answered. "I have a brother."

Stretching out slightly, Bulma shifted her gaze to the ceiling. "And you never mentioned him because…"

"Because as far as I knew, he had never actually been born," the prince sharply answered. "The last time I saw our mother, she was only halfway through gestation. A month later, my planet had been destroyed and my race was dead."

The blue haired heiress cringed slightly at his tone. She knew that his past was a topic that they talked about extremely rarely, but she was dying of curiosity about this long lost brother of his. "That must have been…"

"Don't," Vegeta harshly warned. "Don't you dare pity me."

Deciding that her husband's demand was reasonable, she shrugged and went on. "So riddle me this one, then. If he hadn't been born the last time you were on your world, and as far as you knew, he never was, how the hell did you know his name?"

Sighing, Vegeta tried to let go of the anger that had filled him only a moment earlier. "That's what our mother had been calling him from the moment she found out about him," he finally answered. "And as for recognizing him, it's not as if it's all that hard to see the relation between us."

"Agreed," Bulma said, glancing in the direction of her in-laws room. "To be honest, when Tarble first showed up, I really thought that it was you from the past." When her husband shot her a questioning glare, she simply shot back, "Well, it's not like no one in our family has ever traveled through time before!"

She regretted those words the moment they left her mouth. It was no secret to her that Mirai Trunks' visit had wreaked havoc on her husband. Having a son that he had not particularly wanted suddenly show up as an adult had been rough on Vegeta, and Trunks had not been at all ready to learn that his father did not fit the dream version of a father he had long fantasized about. Vegeta's reaction of those expectations was simply to be as far off model as possible in an attempt to make the boy go away. By the time all was said and done, both had changed and not necessarily for the better.

"Anyway," Bulma went on, desperately wanting to pass over her mistake, "I just find it odd that you've just had this brother out there, somewhere in the universe, that you never found out about. Then, he just, like, _magically_ found you when he needed help."

Pausing for a moment, her husband told her, "He's apparently known where I have been for several years."

"_What_?" Bulma cried. She cringed at how loud her voice was, but still followed with a hissed, "What?"

"He knew where I was," Vegeta repeated. "And do not be upset with him for not coming earlier." He looked away briefly before adding, "Remember, my reputation preceded me."

Nodding, Bulma whispered, "Right." Sensing that it was time to end the conversation, the beautiful heiress slinked over to her husband. "So," she purred, pulling on his waistband, "you want to wrestle?"

/////

Tarble snuggled into his nice warm blankets, reveling in the comfort of his surroundings. For four years, the little prince and his wife had been fleeing for their lives, relentlessly pursued wherever they went. Knowing that the creatures that had hunted him across the stars were dead and gone, Tarble was getting the first full night's sleep he'd had in years.

It was four thirty in the morning, and Vegeta was standing in the open doorway to his brother's room. The hour had come for the brothers to begin their mutual training, and Vegeta had not been happy to find the younger prince not only not ready to go, but not even awake. The elder prince had a good mind to do with his brother what he had always done with his own son for such an offense: silently enter the room, grab him by the scruff of the neck, and toss him out the door, forcing him to train in whatever he happened to wear to bed.

Vegeta had only made it one step into the room before he found himself pausing. He had never been close to being the sentimental type, but as he watched the peaceful look on his younger brother's face, a thought crossed his mind. In his childhood, Vegeta had been hunted himself almost constantly for hundreds of different reasons. Some tried to get his tail, knowing that the price of a Saiyan tail on the black market had skyrocketed after the destruction of the vast majority of the race. Some had taken great pleasure in beating him down because he had been a prince reduced to nothing, and they enjoyed reinforcing that idea. Most were after him out of vengeance for one thing or another. In any event, it made for a lot of paranoia and sleepless nights.

While Tarble had not endured half of what his elder brother had, Vegeta was still fairly certain that a sleep that restful was a rarity.

"This is your one freebie," he whispered, stepping out of the room and closing the door. On his own, he headed down to begin his own intense training.

/////

Two hours later, dressed in his training clothes, Trunks made his way to the gravity room. While he normally joined his father at that hour for training, the little prince was not sure what to expect now that his uncle was in the picture. While he hadn't been intending it in a mean way, Trunks had been brutally honest when he had announced that his uncle did not seem like much of a fighter. The power he was able to sense from his tiny uncle was even lower than Yamcha's, and in Trunks' eyes, that was just sad.

Tarble seemed nice enough, and the boy did not doubt for a moment that they could have a lot of fun together, but the idea of having to lower the level he trained at for someone else annoyed the living daylights out of him. He had worked hard to get to that level, and he found it completely unfair that he had to take a step back for someone else.

"Huh," the boy muttered to himself, "Dad suddenly makes a lot more sense…" He punched the intercom button and waited, knowing that on the other side of those thick walls a warning signal was alerting his father to his presence.

"What?" came the deep voice over the box.

"Do I have clearance to enter?" Trunks asked, honestly not sure if he would be allowed in.

It was quiet for a moment before the child heard the telltale sounds of a decompressing airlock and heavy duty bolts giving way to allow him entrance. With a self assured smirk, Trunks opened up the heavy door, ready to step in and show off in front of his new uncle.

With a combination of disappointment and disbelief, Trunks realized that his father was training alone. "What happened to training with Uncle Tarble at four thirty in the morning?" he asked, a slight hint of accusation lacing his words.

"He's cashing in his one freebie," Vegeta simply offered.

The youngest prince raised a purple eyebrow at his father. "Is he cashing it in voluntarily, or is he cashing in his freebie the same way I cashed mine in a year ago when my alarm clock broke?"

"The latter."

Trunks rolled his eyes but understood. Vegeta had a 'one freebie' rule, meaning you had one and only one chance to sleep in or blow off a training session without the prince retaliating swiftly and aggressively. Once that freebie was gone, it was gone forever, and retribution for a second slight could be hazardous to one's health. "Are you going to let Uncle Tarble know the one freebie rule, or are you going to let him find out the hard way?"

"Haven't decided yet."

With a downright evil smirk on his face, Trunks began his warm up. "Will you let me in on it?"

Vegeta paused for a moment, looking down at the gravity console as he considered. He would definitely do _something_ to his younger brother if there was a repeat performance, but he was yet to decide what. The concept of having a brother was still fairly foreign to him, and he was still puzzling out how exactly he was supposed to react to one. It raised a whole series of questions in his mind of what rules and guidelines he would treat him by.

Not only that, but Tarble was fairly weak in almost every aspect. The normal forms of payback he would use would likely be too trying for his overly sheltered brother. While he wanted to toughen the younger prince up, he did not want to destroy him psychologically.

But using Trunks? While he normally preferred to work alone, there was a small part of him that was almost exited at the idea of getting his mischievous son in on a bit of the torturous fun.

"Perhaps," he finally responded, an equally evil smirk on his face. "Until then, you have your own regimen to attend to…"

/////

At nine in the morning, Tarble stretched in his nice, warm bed. His eyes barely slid open as he rolled over and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. Suddenly, he shot bolt upright in bed, all traces of sleep gone. "Oh, crap…"

Beside him, Gure nestled into her pillow. "What?" she murmured, snuggling deeper. After four years on the run, the tiny alien was reveling in the concept of having a pillow even larger than she was and being able to relax at her leisure was fantastic.

"I slept in!" Tarble cried, stumbling out of the king sized bed and nearly tripping on the way to the closet.

"What?" Gure murmured again, not really paying attention to her husband.

Panicked, Tarble hopped into a pair of sweatpants that Bulma had given him the night before. "I promised Vegeta that I would meet him in that training room over four and a half hours ago!" he shouted, staggering out the door. Desperately trying to remember where the room was, Tarble tore through the hallways. Finally finding his desired location, Tarble came to a skidding halt outside of that intimidating metal door.

The young prince suddenly realized he had no idea what to do next. Was he supposed to walk right in? _Could_ he walk right in? He doubted it, given the keycard and pass code areas. What was he supposed to do? He had been on the planet for less than twenty four hours and he had already failed to do the one thing his brother had asked of him. And from what he had spent the bulk of his life hearing, that brother was not forgiving in nature.

"I am so screwed," he whispered in a panicked voice.

A snort sounded behind him. "As if you actually know what that's like."

Letting out an embarrassing squeal, Tarble whipped around and found himself staring at his intimidating brother. "Vegeta!" he gasped out. "I thought you were in…"

"Morning training ended forty minutes ago," the elder prince simply responded. "Breakfast will be served in five minutes. Let your wife know." And just as simply as he had entered, he left again.

Tarble stood in shock, not sure what to think about the interaction. The Vegeta he had heard about had a wildly violent temper, and did not take slight well. But Tarble had completely blown him off, and he hadn't even gotten a tongue lashing. Completely dazed, Tarble returned to his room to inform his wife of the meal.

As Vegeta entered the kitchen, Trunks looked up at him. "So?" he asked.

"We shall see," was the only answer the father gave.

With a wicked smirk back on his face, Trunks bounced off the counter and headed for food. If he got his way, his uncle would sleep in the next morning. Then the fun would begin…


	4. Chapter 4

At the end of the evening, Tarble was barely able to stagger out of the training room. While he had missed morning training, he had been well worked during the afternoon and evening sessions. And, as he limped away from the room he now very strongly disliked, he was fairly certain that his brother must have spent those two bouts punishing him for skipping out on the morning.

What Tarble would be learning was that those training sessions had been light, and that the punishments were yet to happen.

The tiny prince groaned as he tried to work his way down the hallway. "I don't think there's a single part of my body that he did not make me exercise today…"

"Not true," his big brother answered, casually walking up behind him. "But it will likely be at least a year before you can exercise that part of you, and I'm sure as hell not the one who's going to train you."

Tarble tried to turn around, but only made a quarter turn before leaning heavily against the wall. "You seriously train like this every single day?" he panted.

"Again, you are incorrect," Vegeta casually responded. "This is the lightest training that I have undergone since I first began training my son when he was four."

"About that," Tarble asked, groaning as he faced his brother but kept his weight against the wall. "How the hell does a nine year old have as much, if not more, power than Frieza? I thought Abo and Cado were psychotically powerful, and your nine year old is stronger while he's screwing around. How is that even possible?"

Vegeta leaned against the other wall, crossing his arms as he spoke with his brother. "It appears that combining the blood of a Saiyan and a human begets a powerful hybrid," he answered. "The first I heard of it was when Kakarot's son landed a critical blow on his uncle. Kakarot had his ass handed to himself, but Gohan had no problem shattering Raditz's sternum."

Tarble bit down on his lip, not sure if he was supposed to be impressed by the power of the Saiyan/human mix, entertained by Kakarot's situation, or sad that his brother's companion had been killed. "No wonder you decided to have children here. When was it that you decided that you wanted to have one?"

Any sense of ease that Vegeta had shown disappeared in an instant. "That is not your concern," he angrily snipped.

The smaller prince could swear that he had felt the temperature of the hallway drop. "Got it," he quietly said. "Will our training continue in a few days?"

"Tomorrow morning," the elder brother curtly replied. "At four. Do not be late."

With those final words, Vegeta aggressively stride away, leaving a nervous Tarble in his wake. As the shorter of the two watched his brother disappear swiftly down the hallway, he once again bit down on his lip. All the younger man could do was wonder what other topics would be off limits…

…and why Vegeta did not wish to talk about his son…

/////

"You need to be nicer to him."

Vegeta scowled at his wife's statement. "If he wishes to be my brother, then he has to deal with the real me, not some watered down version of me." He pulled a clean towel out of the closet, intent on getting a nice hot shower.

Bulma stood in the bathroom doorway and placed her hands squarely on her hips. "There's a difference between being your sarcastic self and not even _trying_ to hold back your temper. If you let yourself get mad every single tame your little brother decides to ask a question about a part of your life you don't want to talk about, you're going to be pissed of for the rest of your life."

"Not true," Vegeta countered, glaring at his wife. "I'll only be pissed off until he grows up and finds a place of his own."

The heiress stuck out her lips in a pout. "Didn't you say that could take a few years?"

"How long did puberty take you?"

Slapping him on the shoulder, Bulma leaned against the doorframe. "You know what I'm talking about," she whined. "He's going to be curious about your life, and even if he doesn't ask directly about your past, the odds of him bringing up something on the 'do not bring it up' list are high. He's not like me and Trunks, Vegeta. He doesn't even know the list exists."

Both aspects of her speech were good points. Vegeta did have a list of things about his life that he absolutely refused to talk about, even with Bulma. While there were a handful of things that he had made available to his wife, the vast majority of them remained completely off limits. So much as bringing the topics up could set him in such a bout of fury that he would lock himself in the gravity room just to make sure his rage was only taken out on himself.

Through trial and error, Bulma and Trunks had learned a number of phrases to simply never mention around him. While they remained extremely curious, all three of them knew that it was better to just let it go when such a topic came up. They knew the warning signs when they began to get in to dangerous conversational territory.

Tarble did not even know that there were topics to avoid, let alone what they were.

"You figured it out," Vegeta eventually spoke to his wife. "He'll get it on his own, too."

Bulma kept herself angled so that her husband's path to the shower remained blocked. "Maybe not soon enough," she softly told him. "I got to know most of them in our early years, when we didn't give a damn what the other thought. All we wanted was sex, and you know as well as I do that we both went out of our way to be mean to each other during the day so we could screw each other all night without thinking there was actually anything between us."

She brought her foot up and placed it firmly on the opposing doorframe of her back. "Trunks learned a few by trial and the rest by council from us. I know Tarble isn't your son, but he's still family, and he should at least be warned."

Vegeta continued to glare at his wife, and she watched in amusement as his left cheek was sucked in lightly. "I do not wish to indulge so much information so quickly."

"But you will tell him, right?" she demandingly asked.

Letting out a tired sigh, Vegeta gave a mild nod. "I will, in due course, let Tarble know. But as things are right now, it would be in bad judgment to inform him now. He still is somewhat nervous being alone with me. I do not wish to…overload him quite so soon."

Bulma considered for a moment before lowering her leg and allowing her husband access to his long awaited shower. She found his terms to be acceptable, and she was more than aware that she had used up as much 'nagging wife' time as she could if she wanted a chance of having him in a good mood when they got into bed.

"The hot water tank is full," she said with a smirk, stepping up to his chest. "Care for some company?"

/////

Tarble stood exhausted in his shower, his tail literally hanging between his legs. Small amounts of blood and large amounts of sweat poured off of his exhausted body as he leaned heavily against the shower wall. Never, in his entire life, had he felt so exhausted.

Both hands allowed him to keep his balance as the hot water began to soothe his aching muscles. If he had known that he would be pushed nearly that hard, Tarble may not have agreed so readily to train with his brother.

No matter how tired he was, no matter how much he hurt, and no matter how badly he did not want to do it again, the prince knew that what he was going through was for the best. It was true, a Saiyan that never stimulated those glands never matured, and a Saiyan that never matured died young. A Saiyan that grew up normally could live for several hundred years, but one that went too long without it could hardly make it to seventy.

Tarble had been thinking a lot lately about life length. Gure's people lived, on average, for about two and a half centuries. If he really pushed himself through adolescence as quickly as he could, Tarble might be able to live as long as his wife would.

However, it was not his own life span he had been contemplating. His older brother and _his_ wife were from races with radically differing life spans. Tarble had learned through his wife that humans rarely made it to a single century. Assuming that Vegeta had aged as a normal Saiyan, the eldest prince would outlive his wife by hundreds of years. It was a thought that was definitely depressing.

It made Tarble wonder what he would do if he had to live without Gure's companionship. While the two of them did not engage in _all_ of the activities that a normal married couple did, they were still partners in every sense of the term. They knew what the other was thinking at all times. They shared in each others joy, and the comforted in each others sorrows. Through thick and through thin, they stood by one another.

Gure was his other half, and Tarble was not entirely certain that he would be able to keep going if he ever lost her. It was miraculous that either of them had managed to survive their flight from Abo and Cado. And without that threat looming over their heads, Tarble wanted to make sure that he could spend as much time as possible with his beloved.

He groaned loudly as he reached for the soap, every muscle screaming in pain. If going through physical hell for a few years now meant an extra two hundred years with his wife, Tarble would gladly pay the cost.

/////

At four o'clock the next morning, Tarble shakily stood next to the door of the gravity room. He had woken up in more pain than he had ever been in his life, but he was determined not to give up.

Vegeta came up to the door and undid the locks. "How are you feeling?"

Tarble was caught completely off guard by the question. "I'm…I'm…" The truth was that he felt like his legs were going to give out at any given moment and that his entire body burned from the simple act of breathing, but he had a feeling that such a statement. "I'm…here…"

The elder brother rolled his eyes as he opened the door. If nothing else, he was going to have to teach his brother how to sidestep a question better than that. "If you are sore from yesterday, now is the time to let me know."

"Why?" the smaller prince asked. "I thought we were going to train, regardless of how I felt. In fact, you gave me a ten minute lecture on that exact subject."

Fighting to keep his temper in check, Vegeta glared at his little brother. "True, but if your muscles are too strained and I push you too hard, you'll do so much damage to yourself that the entire process will become futile." He opted not to mention that it was through his own near suicidal level of training before the androids that he had figured that out. "I will push you to your limit, but there is no reason to push you beyond that. Yet."

A soft smile graced Tarble's features. "I'm in a fair amount of pain," he finally admitted. "It hurts just to be on my feet right now."

Vegeta gave a small nod of approval before entering the training grounds. While he held no sympathy for his brother's pain, he did hold a certain amount of admiration for his spirit. Tarble had openly admitted that he had a peaceful life, void of intensive physical activities. But in spite of how strained his body was, he had still shown up, right on time, to go back for more.

"Come on," he calmly spoke. "Let's make sure you're properly warmed up…"


	5. Chapter 5

It had been almost two months since Vegeta had begun to train his brother, and progress had been slow. Tarble had minimal knowledge of how to fight, and most of what he thought he knew was wrong. It had taken weeks for Vegeta to break Tarble of countless bad habits, and more than once, the younger prince had relapsed into them.

Though progress was slow, though, it still existed. Tarble's form was getting steadily better, as was his endurance. And, much to the delight of Trunks, he had learned enough about fighting to at least participate in a basic spar. He still paled in comparison to his family members, but Tarble was definitely showing marks of improvement.

One morning, though, after months of flawless attendance, Tarble forgot to set his alarm and slept in. By a lot.

It was six in the morning when Trunks went to the gravity room, and the youngest prince was surprised to find his father training alone. "He did it again?" he asked, his jaw dropping in shock. "It's only been two months! It took _me_, the irresponsible _child_, half a year before I screwed up twice!"

"Because you were raised with discipline," Vegeta growled, pausing his training long enough for his son to enter and close the door. "It has been fairly obvious as of late that your uncle was not raised in such a manner."

Trunks growled as the gravity was turned back on. "Please tell me that he's not going to get away with it this time."

"If I didn't know better," the father responded with a smirk, "I'd say you were sounding more like his jealous little brother than his nephew."

"Well, that's what it's like!" Trunks countered, starting his warm up. "I mean, I know perfectly well that he's, like, forty years old, but I swear he acts like he's a little kid! He asks permission for everything like a kid does, he doesn't do anything until a 'grown up' tells him to, and I swear to Kami that he treats you more like his dad than like his brother! So why _wouldn't_ I think of him more like a long lost older brother?"

Vegeta offered a silent nod, definitely agreeing with his son. Since his arrival two months earlier, Tarble had continuously acted like the preteen he looked like. He was a hard worker, but he was hesitant around, as Trunks would call them, 'grown ups'. Plus, he didn't seem to voluntarily take initiative with anything. Training he would do, but basic household actions were only done if someone told him to do them.

Of course, it was strike two for the prince, and as far as Vegeta was concerned, that was one strike too far. Tarble had to be taught a lesson, and perhaps retribution could serve a double purpose.

A downright evil look crossed Vegeta's face, and he turned to look at his son. "I have an idea…"

/////

Two hours later, Trunks sat on the kitchen counter and flipped the phone into his hand. His heels casually bounced against the cabinets as he waited for his intended target to pick up the phone. "Hey, Gohan?" he asked as soon as he heard someone pick up.

On the other side of the conversation, Gohan blinked. "How did you know I'd be the one to pick up the phone?"

"Easy," Trunk replied, stretching out his shoulders. "It's eight in the morning. Your dad's gonna be out training, your mom's gonna be making breakfast, and Goten's not allowed to use the phone again until Thursday. It had to be you." The boy hopped off the counter and walked toward the fridge. "Anyway, I was wondering if Goten could come over today, around ten-ish?"

Gohan glanced over his shoulder at his mother. "Well, it's not exactly my decision, but I'll ask Mom for you," he responded, smiling. One brief conversation later, Gohan returned to the phone and announced, "Yep, he'll be there."

"Excellent," Trunks replied, a smirk on his face that could rival his father's. "Thanks, Gohan. Bye." As he hung up the phone, he opened up the freezer. "Let's just make sure I've got everything I need in here…"

/////

Bulma stared at her bedroom computer screen, but she could not seem to hold on to her concentration. Vegeta had recently returned from his morning training session, and they had a very interesting conversation. She, too, knew of Vegeta's one freebie rule, and she, too, was familiar with his occasionally eccentric methods of payback.

But this was certainly a new twist. An interesting idea, to be sure, but she was not entirely certain she was comfortable with it. It was hardly because she felt that it was too cruel, but the collateral damage could be catastrophic.

Still, it was a fascinating idea, and her husband had brought up several excellent points. Besides, it could provide her with great stories for years to come.

As the shower turned off, Bulma saved her file and shut down her computer. If there was going to be torture involved in her household, she wanted a piece of the action.

It sounded like a lot of fun!

/////

Tarble rolled over in his bed and groaned. Two solid months, without a single day off, of training incessantly with his older brother was pure torture. Every muscle felt like it was screaming at him. The simple act of opening his eyes seemed to hurt. The day before, Vegeta had told him that it was time to stop slacking off and take the training up a notch. So he had _doubled_ the amount of gravity that they were training in! They had jumped from _ten_ times Earth's gravity to _twenty_!

The prince took a deep breath and immediately regretted it. The pain was definitely not worth it.

Just once, he wanted to not have to worry about training. Yes, he knew that he was doing it for a damn good reason, and that it was for his own good, but that didn't mean that it wasn't painful and hard. If only once he could sleep well after the son rose, to just relax within those satin sheets until he wanted to get up, to not have to move a single muscle…the mere thought of it brought a sensation near bliss to him.

But he knew that wasn't an option, so he cracked open an eyelid. The moment it opened, though, he sat bolt upright. His body screamed at him, but it was far from his mind. He was, as always, meant to be training at four. Four was early. Four was quiet. Four was dark.

His room wasn't dark. The sunlight beamed so brightly into his room that he had to squint to minimize the pain. The house wasn't quiet. He could easily hear Trunks and Goten playing downstairs and the chatter of the adults. And it certainly wasn't early.

His clock told him it was almost eleven in the morning.

"Oh, crap," he muttered, panicked. Tarble glanced to his side, wondering why his wife had slept late. Much to his surprise, he discovered that he was alone in his room. His wife's side of the bed was stone cold. Gure had clearly been up for hours.

Tarble grimaced, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. "Double crap…" The prince desperately tried to make his legs function, and seemed to be only having moderate success. It took him almost five minutes just to put on his sweats and a t-shirt.

"I'm dead," he mumbled as he headed out of his room and down the stairs. "I'm dead, I'm dead, I am so dead…" He staggered quickly into the kitchen, his heart racing more an more the closer he got to his destination.

As he entered the kitchen, Gure greeted him with a cup of coffee. "Good morning, dear," she cheerily greeted, handing over the warm brew. "Somebody was sleepy today, huh?"

"Gure," he whispered, grouchily taking the mug from his wife, "why didn't you wake me up?"

The extremely short female shrugged and pulled a cookie off of a plate. "It was almost nine when I woke up," she casually responded. "You were already five hours late, honey. It was impossible for you to make it even close to on time, and I know how much you've wanted to sleep in. There was no reason to wake you up."

Tarble groaned at placed his still full mug on the counter. "I cannot believe I forgot to set my alarm again!"

"It happens," Bulma responded, organizing things in her purse. "Anyway, we're glad that you're up now, because there's something we need to talk about."

The prince looked up at his sister in law. "Did I do something wrong?"

"Oh, no," she casually responded. "It's nothing like that. We just have a little favor to ask you."

"Oh," Tarble responded. Hesitantly, he picked his mug back up and took a sip. "Of course. What do you need?"

Bulma gave her purse one last inspection and snapped it closed. "Well, here's the deal. I promised your lovely wife that I would take her shopping with me and the girls this afternoon, but I totally forgot that Vegeta scheduled a spar with Goku and Gohan today. Trunks and Goten are too young to be left here alone. Normally it's not an issue, but my parents are out on their trip around the world, so they can't help us out."

Tarble nodded, continuously sipping at his drink.

"Anyway," the heiress went on, "could you watch the boys this afternoon? I know it's last minute, but it would help us out a lot and I'm sure Trunks would _love_ to spend some real quality time with his uncle."

"Of course," the prince accepted, a soft smile on his face. "I'd be happy to help out."

"Fantastic," Bulma quickly said as she slid her purse on her arm. "Okay, Trunks and Goten are in the playroom playing video games, Vegeta's long gone and won't be back until nightfall, and we should be back in six or seven hours. Thanks, Tarble!"

Before Tarble had another moment to process what was going on, his wife and sister in law were out the door. The prince swallowed hard as it suddenly dawned on him that he had never before spent a considerable amount of time with his nephew. While they had definitely trained together, and the entire family ate meals together, they rarely interacted outside of those two venues.

He sighed and took another sip of his brew. "Okay," he softly told himself, "he's a little boy, and it's only one afternoon. How hard could it be?"

Off in the distance, he heard the two boys yelling angrily at their gaming system. Tarble smiled and shook his head. Odds were that as long as he let them play their games, he could have a fairly quiet afternoon.

Knowing that it was the right thing to do, the Saiyan prince headed for the play room to check on his nephew. He stuck his head in, and sure enough, they were playing a game he was unfamiliar with. They were also enjoying a snack of some kind, but Tarble could not make out what it was.

"How are you two doing in here?" he asked.

Trunks didn't bother to turn around, but an evil smile came on his face. "Oh, we're doing great," he answered. "And don't worry about us wasting the whole day playing this. Just let us finish up this level and we'll be _right with you_."

The older prince just nodded. "Alright, then. I'll be in the living room when you're done."

Trunks nodded, his wicked smile still on his face. "We'll be there soon." As his uncle left the room, the purple haired boy glanced over at his friend. "Hey, Goten, you're falling behind," he taunted. "Eat up."

Bouncing up and down in his seat, Goten freed up a hand and took a giant spoonful of his personal gallon of coffee ice cream. "Wow, Trunks, I never get to eat this at home! Mommy says it makes me hard to handle, but I don't think it does. Does it? Does it make me hard to handle? Trunks, what does hard to handle mean? Trunks? Trunks? Trunks, my hands are shaking. Are they supposed to do that, Trunks?"

The elder boy just chuckled and took a bite from his own ice cream. It was time for his uncle to know about the time honored tradition of baby-sitting your brother's offspring.

Tarble sat down on the living room couch and placed his feet up on the ottoman. He had heard stories from his sister in law about how hard it could be to watch the boys, but it seemed they had been exaggerated. Trunks had always been fairly well behaved when they were training, and seemed to be a well disciplined young boy. He certainly had a streak of mischievousness to him, but he was hardly the nightmare he had heard about.

Suddenly, the entire house rocked and rumbled. "What the…"

"Darn it, Goten!" Trunks' voice echoed through the holes. "I told you, go _left_ at the end of the temple hall! _Left_!"

"I did go left!" Goten's voice quickly followed.

The house shook again. "_Left_, Goten, is the _other_ way!"

Tarble placed his mug down on the side table and got to his feet. "What the hell…?"

Once again, the entire building seemed to shake. Tarble rushed as quickly as he could for the source of the commotion. Out of nowhere, a blur of black and purple came flying at him, leaving him barely any time to dodge it. "Hey!" he shouted.

The blur phased into two little boys. "_Left_," Trunks shouted, grappling his younger friend by the front of the shirt and throwing him, "is _that_ way!"

The uncle grimaced, unsure what was happening. "What's going on?"

Goten flew through the air, breaking part of the doorframe with his body before being able to right himself. "That's what I did!" he hollered back. The smaller boy charged Trunks, mimicking the move perfectly. "I went _that_ way!"

Tarble jumped out the way, watching helplessly as his nephew crashed through furniture.

"_That_ way," Trunks growled, pulling his body out of a smashed table, "is _right!_" He rushed his friend and punched him across the cheek before sneaking around his back. Furiously, he pulled Goten into a full nelson. "Do you feel this, Goten?" he snarled, dragging him to the side. "Because what you're felling right now, that's _left_!"

"Boys!" Tarble called out, trying to catch up to the delinquents. "Trunks, Goten, stop this!"

The younger boy flipped his best friend over his shoulder, smashing him into a counter and cracking it with the force. "Well, you're just a _jerk!_" he shouted back. "And you know what?"

"What?" Trunks hissed as he brushed the ruble off his clothes.

Goten grinned, his body shaking with the rush of sugar and caffeine. "You can't catch me!"

Trunks got the rest of the dust out of his eyes before bolting after his friend. "Oh, you are so dead!"

"Don't!" Tarble hollered, trying to chase them down. Unfortunately for him, both children were faster than him by so much that it was a pointless pursuit. The prince looked around, panicked as he surveyed the damage around him. "Crap," he grumbled. There was a broken doorframe, a smashed countertop, and a shattered table, and the others had only been gone for half an hour.

Fear rose in his chest as he felt the house rock yet again. "What the hell am I going to do?"

For ten more minutes the two boys tore through the house, and Tarble found that he was unable to think of any way to even slow them down, let alone stop them. As he sat in the kitchen, his head in his hands, wondering how his brother was going to kill him for it, there was a sudden shift in energy.

"Uncle Tarble!" Trunks shouted.

The elder prince jumped to his feet. Was it over? Were the boys done destroying everything they saw? "Yes?"

Trunks sprinted into the room, pulling a green looking Goten behind him. "Goten doesn't feel good!"

Tarble's eyes bulged out of their sockets. "Crap…okay, okay, um, we can deal with this…"

"My tummy feels funny," Goten whined.

Tarble panicked. He had never been left alone with children before. He had never been in charge of anyone else's wellbeing before. Never, in his life, had he needed to know how to deal with anything even close to a nauseous child! "Um, um…"

Goten's face changed again, suddenly losing all sense of color. "I don't feel good…"

Trunks grimaced, jumping back as quickly as he could. He was the only one to clear the line of fire before Goten lost it. "Oh, gross," he muttered.

Staring in horror at the scene before him, Tarble began to change colors himself. "This is disgusting!"

"Yeah," Trunks mumbled. He pulled a bottle of ginger ale from the fridge, gently placed a hand on Goten's shoulder and led him away, calling out to his uncle, "The cleaning supplies are under the sink."

That snapped Tarble out of his trance. "What?"

"You clean," he replied, "I'll take care of Goten. We'll be upstairs."

Dumbfounded, Tarble staggered his still sore body to the sink. After washing his hands five times, he grabbed the kitchen phone. He looked over on the refrigerator at the phone list, looking up his sister in law's number. He nervously looked around as he hoped and prayed for Bulma to pick up the phone, but he ended up being sent to her voice mail. "Damn it!" he whined, hanging up the phone.

He looked forlornly at the unbelievably disgusting mess in the room. Trunks had told him were the cleaning supplies were, but Tarble really, really, _really_ did not want to be the one to clean it up.

But he had been left in charge, and he knew it was his job. Fighting to ignore the odor, the overwhelmed prince opened the cabinet under the sink and got out what he needed.

/////

It had taken quite a while for him to finish cleaning and sanitizing the area (though he did swear he would never eat in that room again), but Tarble finally finished his job. Several rounds of handwashing later, he followed his senses to where his charges were.

Despite the two months he had lived at Capsule Corp, Tarble continued to get lost through the vast compound. Attempting to follow an energy signal was extremely difficult when things like walls were taken into consideration, and it took the shaken prince almost thirty minutes to arrive at his location.

As he looked upon the large door in front of him, he swallowed hard. "Oh, you two have got to be kidding me," he whispered as the blood drained from his face.

Tarble was standing outside the thick outer door of the Western Lab. The boys were clearly on the other side of the door.

And poor Tarble had no idea how to get in.

There was an area to the right that obviously appeared to be the 'key' area, requiring a key card and a password. Next to that was a palm scan space, and next to _that_ was a retinal scanner.

"How the hell did they get in there?!?" Tarble cried out, pulling at his hair. Frantically, he began banging his fist on the door. "Trunks! Goten! Get out here, now!"

His still fledgling senses could detect them slowing down on the other side, but that didn't last long. Tarble had no idea what to do, so he ran back to the kitchen to look up Bulma's number and call her again. The way he figured it, it was better to admit that they got in there than it would be trying to explain the damage done by leaving them there. "Oh please, oh please, oh _please_ pick up the phone!" he begged.

But once again it ended up in her voice mail.

Angrily, he hung the phone up again. If no one could help him, then he would just have to help himself!

/////

Four hours later, a defeated Tarble slumped against the lab door. He was so exhausted that he didn't even care that Bulma and Vegeta had not only gotten home, but were standing right in front of him.

"I give up," he mumbled. "They win."

"I can see that," Vegeta observed. "What the hell happened?"

Tarble shuddered and kept his eyes on the ground. "They were just playing their game, and then they had a fight, and then they chased each other, and then they broke the house, and then Goten hurled, and then they got in the lab, and then…and then…and then I don't know what the hell happened, because they're in _there _and I'm out _here_!"

Bulma and Vegeta glanced at each other, and the heiress shook her head. With a smirk on her face, she whipped through the entry process and opened the lab door. Tarble staggered to his feet, morbidly curious about just how much damage his charges had done. He rounded the corner into the lab, and his jaw dropped.

The boys weren't in there.

"How…where…when…who…how…" he stuttered.

Vegeta smacked him lightly in the back of the head. "Use sentences!"

The younger prince closed his mouth and desperately tried to figure out what the hell had happened. "They aren't here!" he cried out. "How are they not here? I sensed them! They _have_ to be here!"

"No they don't," Bulma casually replied, pressing a few buttons on some form of controller. "We were going to introduce you to these next week, but it was too good an opportunity to pass up." The heiress nodded toward a small bot that seemed to be perched on a ceiling beam. She used the controller to guide it down and landed it gently on the table she stood by. "I designed this a couple years ago for Vegeta's training," she explained. "I've always made robots that could create or deflect energy for him, but a few years ago I wanted to try to make one he could _sense_. That way the training would be more like an actual battle."

With a self satisfied grin on her face, she picked up her toy. "I'm still trying to create a totally independent energy," she admitted, "but I have managed to replicate the energy signals of my family and the Son's."

Tarble's jaw dropped again. "But…but how did it get started?"

"Easy," Bulma explained with a giggle, placing her robot down. "Trunks has the other controller, and he could set it to auto pilot. I gave it to him this morning."

A rosy tint spread across Tarble's cheeks. "You…you knew he would do this?"

"Yes," the couple replied in unison. Bulma elaborated. "We also knew about the coffee ice cream and what that would likely lead to." It was true, they knew exactly what happened when they got sugared up and caffeinated. Both of them got hyper, but Trunks got aggressive and Goten got nauseous. The three times the boys had been allotted that particular snack, it went exactly the same: they fought, they ran around, and Goten threw up. Then they took a nap.

Vegeta nodded toward the main house. "The boys are in Trunks' room," he added. "With them asleep, her device became a more obvious energy signal."

"But…but why?" the extremely confused an embarrassed prince asked. "Why would you do that?"

Vegeta leaned in and got in his brother's face. "Because you blew off training again," he firmly stated.

"Besides," Bulma casually added as she approached her husband and brother in law, "it was a great family bonding experience. We all got to work together to set this up, and you got to learn what it was like to watch Trunk and Goten!"

"Hey!" Tarble countered. "I hardly consider getting them sugared up as either quality time or learning what they're normally like!"

"True," Vegeta agreed. "In retrospect, it likely would have been a significantly greater punishment to include the blonde girl and let them shout that they're bored for five hours straight, demanding that you entertain them."

Bulma's eyes lit up. "Oh, that's a great idea!" she squealed. "Then Krillen and Eighteen will be freed up, too! Oh, do we have to wait for him to sleep through training again? Can't we do that next weekend? Tarble, you're not doing anything, are you? I should call Chi-Chi…"

Bewildered at his sister in law's actions, Tarble glanced at Vegeta. "What the hell just happened?"

"You just got slated for baby-sitting duty again," the elder brother responded, "with and extra child as well."

The smaller Saiyan grimaced. "There's no way of getting out of it, is there?"

Vegeta only chuckled as he walked away, sure that it would be a long time before Tarble slept in again.


	6. Chapter 6

Tarble was relaxing on the living room couch, enjoying one of his few moments off. After four months of training, his body was finally getting used to going through with the intense physical demands training put on him. Still, it was nice to have a few hours to sit back and put his feet up and relax.

Something caused his senses to twinge. The prince cracked an eye open and looked toward the door. "What the hell…?"

Vegeta came storming in the room and grabbed his little brother by the shoulders, hauling him to his feet. "Run."

"What?" Tarble asked, trying to find his balance.

The elder of the brothers began guiding them for the door. "Don't ask," he commanded, "just run."

In his experience, Tarble had found that when someone told you to run, and they did it in that tone, the best thing to was to run like the wind. The second his feet found any sense of stability on that living room floor, he pushed himself for the door.

"Vegeta!"

"Tarble!"

Vegeta pushed his brother faster. "Go faster," he hissed.

But Tarble faltered in his footing. "We're running from our wives?"

That brief moment of hesitation was all the ladies needed to catch up to their men. "There you are!" Gure exclaimed. It took Bulma all of two seconds to recognize the hold that Vegeta had on the smaller prince, and a smirk crossed her features. It meant that she was going to win.

"Oh, Tarble, did Bulma get a chance to tell you yet?" Gure practically squealed.

Tarble paled as Vegeta let go of his shoulder and growled. "Um," the shorter prince stuttered, trying not to cringe, "no, she didn't. I actually haven't seen her all day until right now." He righted himself and smoothed out his shirt before clearing his throat. "Is there something going on?"

"You bet there is!" Gure said with an excited tone. "Bulma got us reservations for dinner and dancing tonight!"

Immediately, Tarble paled. "You're not asking me to watch the boys again, are you?"

"You should be so lucky," Vegeta growled.

As Tarble tried to figure out what was going on, Gure simply giggled. "No, honey, we're not asking you to do that. We're just letting you know that all four of us now have plans for dinner tonight." The microscopic female went over to her husband and gave him a pat on the back. "We're going to head out in about two hours, so you may want to start getting ready now."

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "Absurd," he clearly stated. "All we have to do is take a shower and get dressed. To have both of us get through that process could not possibly take more than thirty minutes, and I am not wasting any more training time than necessary so that you two can complain to us about how there is something you mistakenly assume is wrong with your appearance."

Bulma smirked at her husband. "As long as you're both ready in two hours," she clearly spoke. "And make sure that you're dressed for a _nice_ meal."

As the two content women left the living room, Vegeta smacked Tarble on the back of the head.

"Ow!" cried the younger prince. "What the hell was that for?"

"If you had not stopped to question me, we could have avoided this!" the elder brother hissed.

Tarble continued to rub the back of his head. "First of all, I do not understand what is so wrong with going out for an evening with our wives."

"That's because you've never done it on this planet before," Vegeta quickly countered.

"And secondly," the younger of the pair went on, "how would me running have possibly helped?"

Vegeta smacked his brother again. "Because if we're not _here_, then they can't tell us about it and we don't have to go!"

Tarble grumbled, rubbing his very sore head. "Why are you so against going out for an evening?"

Vegeta growled. "Listen, you little kiss ass, you can be as game as you want with their little plan right now, but I promise you that by the end of the evening, you will be wishing that we had locked you in a microscopic room with all three of the young ones twice as caffeinated."

"What could possibly be wrong with spending an evening with our wives?" Tarble asked, extremely confused. "We do it all the time."

"Yes, here," the elder brother clarified, "within the walls of the compound."

Tarble raised an eyebrow. "So?"

Vegeta rolled his eyes, turning to walk away. "You'll learn." With that simple, final statement, the senior prince removed himself to the kitchen.

/////

Two hours later, the younger prince found himself flustered and famished in the private room of an extremely fancy restaurant. As the wives talked and laughed at each other's jokes, the little prince leaned over to talk to his brother. "Why didn't you tell me that we weren't really going to eat _dinner_?"

"I told you to run," Vegeta coolly replied. "There wasn't exactly time for me to give you details."

Tarble grumbled as he looked down at what he considered to be a microscopic amount of food. "Well, you could have told me before we came," he hissed. "I could have eaten something before we got here!"

"Yeah, well, I was mad at you for not listening to me," the elder prince growled, making sure his voice was low enough to keep the women from being able to hear him. "The next time I tell you to move, you do it without asking for details!"

From across the table, Bulma and Gure giggled. "You know," the smaller woman giggled, "I almost feel bad for doing this to them."

"But I assume _almost_ feeling guilty and _actually_ feeling guilty are different enough for you to still be having fun, right?"

Again, Gure giggled. "Oh, of course," she reassured her sister in law. "If we were making them starve _all_ night, then I might feel too bad about it to enjoy the evening, but since they're going to be able to eat their fill once we get back to the compound…"

"Which they will," the heiress interjected.

"I feel fine," Gure concluded. "Besides, I really miss just being able to get out of the house. This is fun!"

From across the table, Tarble cleared his throat. "So, what exactly does one do when one is on a…what did you call it? 'Date'?"

Bulma nodded. "Yes, a date," she affirmed. "Well there are a lot of things you can do on a date, like what we're doing right now."

With a look of confusion, Tarble looked from his sister in law, down to his absurdly small meal, up toward his brother, and back to his sister in law. "What are we doing?"

Bulma rolled his eyes. "We're eating dinner."

Even more confused, Tarble turned again to his brother. "Can't we do this back at the compound?" he asked, keeping the _With significantly more food?_ to himself.

Vegeta opened his mouth to reply, but Bulma cut him off at the pass. "It's more so about the _atmosphere_ in here, not the food."

That statement only confused the younger prince more. "I thought that this building was at the same approximate elevation as Capsule Corp. How could we be in another layer of the atmosphere?"

Bulma looked to her husband, hoping that he would help. But the elder prince just sat back and smirked. If his wife wanted to have her double date, then she would just have to talk her own way through it.

The heiress sighed. "Didn't you two ever go out for social things back on your home world?"

Tarble looked down at his cooling food. Gure reached over and held on to her husband's hand, offering him a sad smile.

It was Bulma's turn to blink in confusion. What had she said?

"There were social events back on the planet," Gure patiently explained, "but Tarble and I spent our days at home."

When Bulma opened her mouth to begin a round of questioning, Vegeta nudged her under the table with his foot and shot her a look. He knew it would kill her not to know something that she would deem gossip worthy, but having her flat out questioning Tarble would only hurt the younger man more.

And for the first time, Vegeta found that he cared about that. Just a little.

For once in her life, Bulma took the hint and changed topics to something more lighthearted, continuing the dinner with a significantly more jovial mood.

/////

After the tiny meal was concluded, Bulma ushered everyone into car and began heading through the evening streets. "Okay, I know Vegeta's not a huge fan of this place," she began, ignoring the snort her husband gave from the next seat over, "but I swear to you guys that it is so much fun."

Vegeta caught Tarble's eyes in the review mirror and subtly shook his head.

Even though Bulma seemed oblivious to the tiny motion offered by the elder prince, Gure caught it and giggled. "So tell us more about this club you were talking about!"

"Oh, it's fantastic," the heiress gushed. "There's a live jazz band, a dance floor, and the greatest drinks you have ever tasted in your life! You know, I can't even describe it, because it is so amazing that nothing I can say will do it justice!"

In the back seat, Tarble began to fidget slightly. "Is this a popular place?"

"Absolutely," Bulma affirmed. "But don't worry, I made sure that my name is on the list, so we won't have any trouble getting in."

That did not seem to calm the prince down. In fact, he actually began to pull at his fingers. "So, there will be a lot of people at this place?"

Again, Vegeta caught his brother's eye in the mirror. Tarble looked like he was fighting to keep an anxiety attack from getting out of control. Clearly, the idea of being surrounded by people bothered the younger prince deeply.

Unfortunately, Bulma seemed to focused on getting them to their next destination to notice her brother in law's state. "Yeah, it's going to be pretty packed, but I have enough pull to make sure that we can get a table."

Behind her, Tarble began to breathe hard and pull at his fingers. People everywhere, all around him, confined within a building, limited escapes…no….

"No," he panted out. His skin had taken on an ashen shade and his eyes grew enormous. "No, I can't, I can't do it…"

"Tarble," Gure softly said, reaching for her husband.

But the prince was already reaching for the door handle. "I'm sorry," he gasped, shoving the door open. "I'm so sorry…" He jumped from the speeding car and took off into the night's sky.

Before he was all the way out the door, Vegeta was shoving his own door open. "I got it," he quickly mumbled, following his brother.

Bulma slowed the car down to a halt as the two Saiyan's flew away. "What on earth…"

Gure hopped out of the open door in the back, closed it, and joined the heiress up in the front of the car. "I think I may know what's going on…"


	7. Chapter 7

Vegeta flew quietly beside his brother, patiently waiting for the other Saiyan to stop. They had been flying for over twenty minutes, and it had only taken the first two for the elder of the pair to figure out that his brother had no particular destination in mind, just so long as they were away from an urban area.

Finally, in the middle of a desert land, Tarble slowed down and landed. He was gasping for air, a combination of being unused to flying for extended periods of time and still recovering from an anxiety attack.

"I'm sorry," he panted, sitting in the cool night sands.

Vegeta rolled his eyes as he sat down next to his brother. "For what?"

"For ruining the evening," he responded, his breathing still ragged and his eyes downcast.

The elder brother snorted and shook his head. "Oh, please. I didn't want to go out anyway. If anything, you gave me the perfect excuse for getting out of there before we got to that obnoxious place."

Tarble gave a cautious glance up at his brother. When he had first found out that Vegeta was following him, the younger prince had thought that he was going to get scolded for running away from a situation and for getting their wives in a bad mood, both of which were true statements. When nothing had immediately happened, he had actually grown more tense, believing that it may end up as a physical confrontation.

But his brother seemed to be bearing him no ill will of any kind. In fact, it almost seemed like he was there to help.

It was a concept that was a little hard for Tarble to wrap his head around.

Vegeta cleared his throat. "Look, you've been sitting there without talking for over five minutes, and I'm getting bored. Are you going to do something out here or not?"

The corners of Tarble's mouth turned up in a small smile. Only his brother could be at all comforting and that blunt all in the same statement. "I guess I should probably explain why I jumped out of a moving car, huh?"

"Not really," Vegeta responded.

Tarble blinked, slightly confused. "I leapt out of a vehicle in motion, and you're not wondering about that?"

"Hardly," Vegeta snorted. "Trunks does that all the time."

"Really?"

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "All the time. Hell, I've paid him to do it in order to get us out of doing activities that we are not particularly interested in."

Tarble took a moment to process that thought before snickering. He actually could see his older brother bribing the boy to get in trouble as a diversionary act. "How much do you pay him?"

"Twenty dollars for a starting fee, but I'll raise it to fifty if he ends up grounded for two weeks or longer."

Tarble snickered again, really able to relax at last. "I must say, you certainly do have an interesting family here."

Vegeta smirked. "You don't know the half of it."

Several moments passed in silence before Tarble finally started really talking.

"I can't…" he hesitantly began. "I can't be in crowded places." He looked up at his brother for some kind of response, but his brother was not even looking in his direction. In an odd way, it was comforting. Knowing that he was not being actively judged helped keep him calm. "They just aren't safe. There's so much noise and so many people, and you can't know who all of them are..."

He sighed as he tried to collect his thoughts. He had never been forced to actually explain his fear of crowds to another person. Gure had always known, and no one else had ever been close enough to him for him to tell them.

Tarble untied his shoes, removed them, and began to form patterns in the sands with his toes. "I've actually never been in a well crowded area before," he confessed. "I've been forced to avoid them my entire life."

Vegeta just continued to listen silently, though he did remove his coat and got comfortable.

The younger prince waved his tail behind him and continued to play with the sand. If there was one thing he had in common with his brother, it was a dislike of reliving old problems. But he had been forced to bail on an activity because of them, and that meant that it was time for him to actually talk about his past.

"When I got sent to Gure's home world," he quietly said, "I was too young and weak to do anything." He began to suck on the inside of his left cheek and focused on his patterns in the ground. "I was born over a month early, and it was only a few hours before our planet…well, you know. Apparently, just before it happened, someone figured out what was going on and sent me off planet.

"Gure's family found me and took me in," he went on, refusing to look up. "They kept me hidden and safe. They knew from the moment they found me that I was a Saiyan, but they didn't care." He sighed and looked up into the desert's clear night sky, enjoying the bright start. "I got extremely lucky with that."

Beside him, Vegeta nodded. He knew first hand that Saiyans were hated simply for being Saiyans. More than once, complete strangers he had never even done anything to tried to kill him strictly because of his genetic makeup. The odds of Tarble being found by people who would be willing to harbor what they recognized as a Saiyan child were astronomical. Almost anyone else would have killed the baby and gone on their way.

He really was lucky.

"My guardians kept me cloistered," the younger brother softly went on. "I was well educated, and certainly looked after, but I was never allowed to leave their home. They told me in no uncertain terms what I was and what would happen to me if anyone else found out that I was alive."

Vegeta raised an eyebrow and turned his head in his younger brother's direction. "What, exactly, did they tell you that you were?"

Slowly, Tarble brought his eyes up and met those of his brother. "They told me what the Saiyans were like," he quietly said. "They told me about what monsters they were, about how all they cared about was fighting and conquering. They told me about how they were hated by the universe, and how anyone would be happy to kill one, just to spare the universe their existence."

"They _what_?" Vegeta hissed.

Even though he was still intimidated by his brother, Tarble did stand his ground. "Can you tell me any differently?" he demanded. "Can you honestly tell me that what they told me wasn't true?"

"Yes!" Vegeta shouted back. "Just because we were warriors did not mean that we were inherently evil!"

Tarble scoffed. "Is that what you prided yourself on all those years? Your lack of evil?"

Furious, Vegeta got to his feet. "I never said that _I_ wasn't evil, you little bastard!" he shouted. "I said that _our people_, the ones that carried the same fucking blood _you_ do, were not evil! They were proud warriors! They sought out challenges! That is not the same as being a monster like…"

"Okay, okay, I get it!" Tarble interrupted, jumping to his own feet. "So they weren't evil, they were just assholes."

Tarble never saw that fist coming, but he certainly felt it as it connected squarely with his jaw. He slammed into the ground, sending sand in every direction. Suddenly, a spark lit up in him, one he had never felt before. The concept of being struck normally made him want to well up and hide.

Now he wanted revenge.

Tarble kicked out behind him, knowing his brother was there. Vegeta, still significantly stronger and more seasoned, easily blocked the kick. Tarble flipped up onto his feet and swung as hard as he could. Though his brother managed to block it as well, Tarble did feel a small sense of satisfaction when he realized that Vegeta had to actually put forth effort to stop him.

Vegeta caught Tarble's fist and wrenched his arm behind his back. In one swift movement, he brought Tarble's legs out from underneath him and sent him face first into the sand.

"Listen to me, you little bastard," he hissed, using a hand to keep Tarble's cheek firmly in the sand, "you can bitch and moan all you want about what I was like, or how hard it was to grow up as a Saiyan, or how you resent how your life turned out. But you are to _never, ever_ insult our people! I suffered for twenty seven years straight to keep what little the Saiyan race had alive, and I will not have you pissing on it because you listened to a bunch of low level cowards! So either shut the hell up about it, or get the hell off my planet."

With one last angry shove, Vegeta glared at his brother got back to his feet. "You didn't even know them," he growled. "You have no right to judge."

Tarble spat out the large amount of sand that had entered his mouth. He wiped away the sand and saliva that gathered at the corners of his mouth and got to his own feet, matching his brother's glare. "Fine," he firmly said. For the next two minutes, the only noises made were by Tarble as he spat out the grainy particles that invaded his mouth.

"You're going to want to rinse out your mouth with water," Vegeta eventually mumbled.

Cautiously, but still with a hint of anger in his eyes, Tarble looked up. "What?"

"Sand won't come out all the way until you rinse it with an outside source," Vegeta replied. "Trust me."

Nodding, Tarble opted to rub his sore jaw. "Do you ever have a conversation without physical contact?" he genuinely asked.

Vegeta actually had to think about that one for a moment. "Not really, no," he quickly concluded. He looked his brother up and down carefully, studying him for a moment. "You seem to be doing better."

"I've got a bruised jaw and sand in places I never wanted it," Tarble replied with a glare. "How does this make me better?"

The elder brother rolled his eyes. "I meant from the car, you dumbass."

"Oh." Tarble paused to think about that. It was true, he really did feel better. Flying had helped soothe his nerves to a certain extent, but he actually felt completely relaxed after the scuffle with his brother. "I guess you're right." The younger of the brothers looked at the indentation in the sand that his body had left, considering something for a moment. "This is what you were talking to me about before, wasn't it?" he asked.

Vegeta nodded. "We were born to fight," he affirmed. "It's how we survive."

Tarble nodded and looked up at his brother one more time. "You know, I actually kind of like it. Fighting isn't nearly as frustrating as training is. It's very relaxing."

Vegeta chuckled and crossed his arms. "If you want a true catharsis, go punch Kakarot in the head sometime."

"Why would I do that?"

"Trust me, it feels great."

Tarble chuckled and shook out his clothes, trying to get rid of as much sand as possible. "We're not going to that crowded place are we? Because I know I'm calmer now, but I won't be if you take me back there." He shook his head as he thought about it. "Too many people, too many risks."

"Don't worry, the women have already gone home," Vegeta assured. "And if they ask, this was a mutual spar."

Tarble smirked up at his brother. "And what if I tell your wife that you punched me in the face and shoved my face in the sand?"

Vegeta glared dangerously at his brother. "How badly do you want to baby-sit my son and all of his friends?"

With a nervous gulp, Tarble backed down. "Point taken." He watched as Vegeta put his jacket back on, and the two lifted off into the late night sky. "You know," he said with a smile, "this was kind of nice. It's like we…"

"If you tell anyone we 'had a moment', I will kick your ass," Vegeta threatened.

Tarble kept his mouth shut, but he smiled. Whether Vegeta wanted it spoken out loud or not, they were slowly forming their brotherly bond.


	8. Chapter 8

Tarble grumbled as he poked at his cereal with his spoon. For the past few weeks, he had been in a hell of a mood. Every little thing just seemed to agitate him. The brightness of the lights, the sound of a spoon against a teacup, how loud other people would breathe, the constant aching in his body, it all bothered him to no end. And the way people acted…he had no idea that people could be so annoying.

That obnoxious, purple headed gas molecule of a nephew he had was always around when he wanted to train, and that little brat was always rubbing that power difference in his face. And whenever that pint sized nightmare was left alone with him, it was a fate worse than hell.

His sister in law could never seem to make up her mind on her moods. One minute she was being kind and comforting, and the next she was screaming bloody murder at him for some unknown slight he had committed. Not only that, but when he would ask what he did wrong, in order to prevent it from happening again, she only got louder.

Gure was not exactly a comfort either. She was just always so chipper that it sometimes made him want to scream. As he spent hour after hour in that torture chamber, she got to do whatever the hell she wanted. When he was finally able to crawl out at the end of the day, there was his wife, a giant grin on her face and some stupid cheerful saying coming out of that mouth. It really did seem like she was deliberately trying to annoy him.

But the worst of them all was his demanding, demeaning, horrible older brother. That psychotic man was the biggest pain in the ass Tarble had ever met. He never took a break! So far as Tarble knew, Vegeta never actually slept. When Tarble got up at 4:30 in the morning, Vegeta was already training. When Tarble went to bed around ten, Vegeta went back for another round of training. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, it was drill after drill after drill. There was virtually no rest. In the six months that the brothers had trained together, Tarble had only gotten three days completely off.

Not only was the training relentless, but Vegeta was a lousy conversationalist. They spent almost nine hours a day together, but only about five sentences a day were not directly involved in training. And those five usually revolved around either food or a demand to get out of the way. So after six months, he still knew virtually nothing about the man.

And those days just never ended.

His appetite had been driving him absolutely insane, too. One minute he would be absolutely starving, feeling as though if he did not eat immediately he would die. Then, sometimes after a single bite, he had no appetite left at all. His body would still be weak, and he would still be in need of food, but for whatever reason the concept of swallowing food would be almost agonizing to him.

Over the past few weeks he had been stumbling often in his training. His arms and legs just did not want to respond like they used to. They actually seemed to be more in the way than they were useful. And with his limbs tripping him up, he had found himself on the receiving end of significantly more blows than he ever had. Even when he had first learned to fight he had been more coordinated with it!

Every little thing was too hard. And that annoyed him. Greatly.

So as he sat there that morning, poking at his cereal, Tarble was not in a good mood.

Trunks literally slid in to the kitchen in his socks. "Morning!" he called out.

Tarble grumbled something indiscernible, not even bothering to look up from his breakfast. If that brat thought he was getting a happy smile and a cheerful conversation, he had another thing coming.

The little boy came to an abrupt halt and blinked. Trunks was more than familiar with the concept of having a moody relative in the kitchen, but it had never been his uncle. Tarble had always been, if nothing else, sociable. In fact, even after a tortuous afternoon on baby-sitting duty, Tarble had been at least mildly pleasant. So when he refused to look up and was growling at food, Trunks knew that there was definitely something off with Uncle Tarble.

The youngest prince simply poured himself a glass of juice and sat beside his uncle. "Do you want to talk about something?" the boy asked.

But Tarble only continued to make guttural noises at the food he was not really eating.

"You know," the boy casually said as he sipped at his beverage, "this may seem like a foreign concept, especially in _this_ family, but having someone to talk to actually _does_ help."

"Do I look like I want to talk?" the elder prince snipped.

That certainly caught Trunks off guard. "Hey, it's not like I'm attacking you," he defended.

"It's not like you're leaving me alone, either," Tarble shot back.

With a huff, Trunks shot to his feet. "Geez, what is your problem?" he shouted. "All I did was offer to talk with you!"

"And all I did was ignore you," the elder of the pair sneered.

"Hey!" Trunks yelled back. "Get off my back!"

Tarble's eyes narrowed, and he shoved his uneaten breakfast away. "Then get out of my face!" With a grunt, he violently pushed at Trunks.

That was the last straw for the younger prince. With a high roar, Trunks launched himself at his uncle. He did not want to put his full strength behind it, but the little boy still took a swing at the man.

Tarble took the hit square in the jaw, but he retaliated with a kick to the boy's midsection. Trunks, who still did not consider Tarble a real threat, did not realize what his uncle was doing until it was too late. The lavender topped prince grunted as almost all the air was forced out of his lungs.

"Cheap shot," he huffed, righting himself quickly. He launched himself again, definitely more aware of his uncle's capabilities. The boy phased out of his uncle's view and grappled him from the side. The two of them tumbled against the kitchen wall, cracking it seriously all the way to the ceiling.

Tarble grunted hard, having taken the bulk of the impact. "Why you little…" He shoved at his nephew, but it was not as effective a move as he had hoped. Trunks, meanwhile, was riding high on frustration and cracked his uncle again against that jaw.

The punch was not pulled.

Suddenly, the power difference that still existed between them became extremely apparent. The cracking noise echoed through the kitchen, blood spurted wildly from Tarble's face, and Tarble was no longer fighting back.

The elder of the two whimpered in pain, and as the drops began to form in the corners of his eyes, Tarble knew he was not going to be able to keep them back. Even in all of the training he had done with his brother, even after the mild scuffle he and Vegeta had a few months earlier, Tarble had never felt pain like he was feeling at that moment.

Trunks felt his blood turn cold, and his skin was instantly clammy. "Oh no…" he whispered. As he watched as his uncle began to cry and quake, Trunks tried to call for help. "Dad…" But Trunks' throat was so dry that almost no noise came out. The boy frantically swallowed, desperately trying to get his voice to work. _"Dad! Mom! HELP!"_

The little boy began to cry as he called for help, and Tarble began to black out from the pain. Neither one of them even noticed as Vegeta sprinted into the room.

"What happened?" the eldest demanded, getting a good look at his wounded brother.

Trunks cried as he watched the blood poor out of his uncle's face. "We got in a fight," he sobbed, rubbing his hands together, "and I hit him, and…and…Dad, I didn't mean to hurt him like that!"

Vegeta just grunted and analyzed the damage on his younger brother. It was definitely bloody, and he was sure that Tarble was in a hell of a lot of pain, but it was hardly a critical wound. He shifted Tarble slightly to minimize just how much of that blood was going to get lodged in his throat. "He'll live," he simply said. "Trunks, go up to my room and get the senzu beans."

The little boy nodded, but still did not move. "I don't know where in your room they are…"

"Your mother's underwear drawer," Vegeta casually said. He glanced up, noticing his son slowed his crying and began turning red. "Look, it was not my idea for them to be in there, but that's where they ended up."

Trunks blushed all the way up to his ears. He knew there were a lot of things in that drawer that he would be happier not seeing, like his mother's panties. "But…but I…"

"Suck it up, shove your hand in, and get the damn bag," he commanded. The wounds on Tarble were not at all life threatening, but the less blood he would have to clean up, the better.

As the boy disappeared, Vegeta focused on his younger brother. "Look, I know that it hurts like hell, but we're going to give you something that will literally fix you up in no time. In under a minute, this is all going to be completely fine. But in order to give it to you, it needs to get into your mouth, so I will be forcing your jaw open so that you can swallow it. Do you understand?"

With a very sad whimper, Tarble slightly nodded. Just staying conscious was taking almost all of his willpower. Tears were flowing down his cheeks, and he was more than a little embarrassed to be crying in front of his brother. However, the pain in his mouth was just so great that he honestly could not stop them.

Trunks came flying into the room and tossed a navy blue bag to his father. "Got it!" he gasped.

Vegeta used one hand to open it up, more than a little grateful for the fact that the woman had been hiding a secret stash of the magical plant. "Tarble, this is going to hurt a lot," he bluntly told his brother, "but just swallow the damn thing and you'll be fine." With no further warning, he opened up the splintered jaw and pressed the bean into Tarble's blood filled mouth. Tarble gagged on the blood and the bean, and it took every ounce of will power he had to force himself to swallow.

And just as suddenly as the pain had arrived, it stopped. Just like magic, it went away.

Slowly, Tarble sat up. He timidly moved his mouth, testing to see if it truly was fixed. Much to his own embarrassment, a fair amount of slightly clotted blood fell out of his mouth as he opened it.

"Here," Vegeta grumbled, tossing a dish cloth to his brother. "Spit on that."

The younger brother did not need to be told twice. He spent a minute clearing out all of the gunk in his mouth before looking up at his family. Vegeta's face was in its usual neutral position, but Trunks still looked scared witless. The boy was quite pale, and he was still shaking a little bit.

Vegeta glanced over at his son and rolled his eyes. "Trunks, you've seen this a thousand times. He swallowed the bean, he's fine."

Trunks nodded, but he still looked afraid. Never, in his life, had Trunks truly hurt someone before. He had always been in total control when dealing with weaker people, and he only ever cut loose on those who were undoubtedly stronger by a significant amount. "I…I think I'm going to go to my room now…" he softly spoke. Without waiting for a reply, the young boy left the kitchen, all thoughts of breakfast gone from his mind.

Groaning internally, Vegeta watched his son disappear. He was hardly an emotionally alert person, but even he knew that the incident was going to require a 'talk' with his son.

Beside him, Tarble used a clean corner of the cloth to wipe off his mouth. "Well, that was unpleasant," he muttered.

Vegeta raised an eyebrow at his younger brother. "Just what in the hell were you picking a fight with my son over?" he demanded.

"Hey!" Tarble snapped. "Why are you automatically assuming that it's _my_ fault we got in a fight?"

"Because I know my son," Vegeta replied, getting back on his feet. "Now what was this all about?"

Tarble also got up and threw the soiled cloth into the garbage can before throwing his arms up in frustration. "Nothing, okay? We were fighting about nothing!"

Looking around the room, Vegeta had a very skeptical look on his face. There were two overturned chairs, a crack in the wall that went almost clear to the ceiling, and blood covering a huge portion of the floor. "Nothing. Right."

"Oh, so you don't believe me now?" Tarble shouted.

Still looking at the blood on the floor, Vegeta shrugged and replied, "I find it difficult to believe that this much damage is done without there being a reason for a fight."

With a frustrated huff, Tarble sat down in one of the chairs. "Look, the kid came in, got in my face for being in a mood, and we fought. That's all there is to it!"

Vegeta leaned against the doorframe. "Do you mean to tell me that Trunks immediately, with no provocation, harassed you this morning?"

"What the hell is your problem?" Tarble demanded, shooting once more to his feet. "You're not listening to me! You _never_ listen to me! Just get the hell out of my face and leave me the hell alone!" Stomping every step of the way, Tarble marched passed his brother and headed back for his own room.

Taking a moment to process the odd way his morning was going, Vegeta shook his head. The sound of scurrying footsteps alerted him to his wife's approach, and Vegeta opted to simply grab a fresh glass from the cabinet, sit down in one of the still standing chairs, and pour himself a glass of orange juice.

"There has got to be a faster way to get from our room down here," Bulma panted as she entered the kitchen. "Trunks passed by me twice and didn't say a damn word! Now, what's the emergency?"

"Phase one is dealt with," Vegeta casually said, sipping his drink. "Trunks and Tarble had a fight, Trunks cleaned his clock, Tarble got a senzu bean, and they're both pouting in their respective rooms."

Bulma spotted the blood on the floor and cringed. "Must have been a hell of a fight."

Vegeta gave a half shrug as he put his glass down. "Jaw shot," he explained. "Anyway, we've entered phase two."

The blue haired heiress groaned. "Damn it, I hate the 'talk about the incident' phase!" She huffed as she sat next to her husband and stole a drink from his glass. "Why were they even fighting, anyway?"

"It would appear," Vegeta answered, snatching his beverage back, "that Tarble has, finally and at last, hit puberty."


	9. Chapter 9

After a brief conversation with his wife, Vegeta headed up the stairs. He was not in the best of moods, and he knew exactly who he was planning on taking it out on. He had been hoping for a relatively calm day, and that seemed to be an impossible dream. His son was upset, his wife was in a mood, and there were blood stains on a large part of the kitchen table and floor. Plus, the entire incident left him without time to eat breakfast.

Oh, yes. Someone was going to pay for the morning. Dearly.

Angrily, the Saiyan prince approached a door and shoved it open. As he took a single step in, he saw his son sit bolt upright on the bed. The boy looked downright terrified. With a mild growl, Vegeta rolled his eyes.

"I swung by to tell you you're not grounded," he quickly said. "Your mother will be up to discuss the rest." That was all he said before storming further down the hallway, stalking his intended target.

Trunks had never felt so relieved in his life.

Vegeta continued on toward his brother's room. Without even pausing to knock, he shoved the door clear off its hinges. It slammed violently into the ground, and he firmly planted his feet on it as he barged into his brother's room.

"Ooh, subtle," Tarble sneered, sitting in his chair and refusing to get up.

Vegeta did not bother with any aspects of formality or etiquette. He simply stalked over to his younger brother, grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, and hauled his ass out of the room. With an angry stride, he dragged his protesting brother through the hallways and straight for his gravity room.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Tarble shouted, grabbing at his brother's wrist and desperately trying to get away. "What, you forgot how to talk or something? Or are you just going to beat on me for a while in order to make yourself feel better?"

The elder prince remained silent, but the muscles along his jaw line were clearly twitching in agitation. If Tarble kept it up much longer, Vegeta was not sure that they were going to make it as far as the gravity room.

"Seriously, let me go!" the younger brother protested. He began to drag his feet on the floor, but that did not slow them down. It did, however, leave a very clear and obvious path of destruction. The carpet was shredded, the floorboards cracked, and even the reinforced concrete that was underneath the boards began to crumble under the force of Tarble's dragging feet.

Angrily, Vegeta shoved his brother into a wall, pulled him right back out, and continued on his path without missing a stride. He knew that Bulma was not going to be happy with the Tarble sized hole in the wall, but he figured that it was better than destroying the entire wing in a full blown fight.

"Shit!" Tarble yelled, cradling his bloody nose. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

Maintaining his silence, Vegeta continued on his path. When they reached the gravity room, he shoved his brother violently to the floor before locking them in.

Tarble got his feet under his body quickly, but he remained in a crouched position. His brother had always been an unstoppable power house, and Vegeta had never exactly been known for having a long temper, but that was honestly the most intimidated Tarble had ever been by his brother.

"So?" Vegeta demanded.

Tarble warily eyed his brother. "So what?"

That was the wrong thing to say. In an instant, Vegeta was beside his brother and throwing him against a wall. "So," he responded, his voice disturbingly calm and level, "why did you pick a fight with my nine year old son?"

"I didn't pick a fight with him!" Tarble snapped. "He came after me!"

Without making a sound, Vegeta was once again shoving his brother into the floor. "Wrong answer," he coolly answered. "Let's try this again, shall we? Why did you pick a fight with my nine year old son?"

Tarble stayed low, but he kept moving, attempting to stay out of his brother's range. "He wouldn't leave me alone."

"Of course he didn't. He's nine." Vegeta slowly began to circle his brother, glaring down at him intensely with each passing step. "Now, why did you make a move at him?"

"He wouldn't leave me alone!" Tarble shouted again. "I know that's a bullshit excuse, but that's all I've got, alright?"

Moving faster than his brother could see, Vegeta had Tarble pinned against the wall by the throat. "I understand being in a mood," he coolly spoke, "and I do understand needing to get the stress and tension out of your system. But if you ever, _ever_, try to take it out on my son again, you will be nothing more than a smear on these walls. Am I crystal clear with that?"

Tarble desperately tried to swallow, but his throat was completely blocked. He could not even breathe. With what little mobility he had, Tarble managed to get out a barely discernable nod.

That was enough to get Vegeta to drop him ungracefully to the ground. "I'm glad we have an understanding," he growled. "From now on, if you need to pick a fight with someone, you are to come straight to me. Believe me, I will be happy to hand you your own ass at any time, day or night, as long as my bedroom door is not locked." He paused for a moment before adding, "If you walk in under those circumstanced, I'll just kill you where you stand."

"What, this is just some big kind of joke to you?" Tarble shot back. "You think that I want you to pound on me any time I'm in a bad mood?"

"I think that's what you need," Vegeta shot back. "You are in a phase right now where you are becoming more and more dangerous, and I will not have you posing any sort of threat to my family. As such, your two choices are to either hunt me down when you feel the need to fight, or be locked in here until your balls finally drop."

Tarble growled at his brother and dared to get to his feet. "You afraid you're to slow to stop me if I'm out there?"

Again, Tarble had clearly said the wrong words. He was slammed into the ground so fast and so hard that it took a moment for the younger prince to assure himself that his spine was, in fact, still intact. Vegeta had one hand pressing aggressively on Tarble's chest, and the other had two fingers aiming a very small, but very powerful, ki blast at his brother's face.

"So help me," Vegeta snarled, "if you make me think for even the slightest moment that you pose any sort of danger to my family, you will be lucky if I am tolerant enough to simply lock you away."

Tarble could feel his pulse racing in his throat. Even Abo and Caddo had not stared at him with intent that deadly. "I would never hurt them," he quietly answered.

Very slowly, Vegeta lowered his fingers and backed away from his fallen sibling. "See to it that you don't," he sneered. "Now get up and fight."

The younger prince was instantly on his feet, though his brain was screaming at him to lay down and play dead. Vegeta was clearly out for blood, and Tarble did not want to be the target of that rage.

"What's got you in such a mood?" The words flew out of Tarble's mouth before his brain could tell him to shut up. It was yet another change he was experiencing that drove him insane.

"I am in a mood," Vegeta growled, "because someone I know proved he was less mature than my nine year old son and then wrecked half my kitchen."

Once more, the words escaped Tarble's mouth before he could register what they were. "He started it!"

"He's nine!" Vegeta countered. "And you're forty years old! There is no excuse for you to be acting like that. I don't care if you are an obnoxious adolescent. I don't care that your body is changing. I don't care that your hormones are screwing with you. You have been alive long enough to be able to recognize a mood issue and to back off when necessary."

"Well, it's not like I've had an easy life!" Tarble shot back. "You know damn well that I went from being cloistered to being hunted! How could you think it was easy?"

Vegeta knocked him to the ground again, once more circling his prey. "The fact that you have a voice that's cracking at the age of forty is more than a subtle hint. Saiyans who fight to survive become adults, and from the looks of it, you have wallowed in your seemingly interminable childhood."

Tarble kept his back on the ground, finally allowing his brain to turn on before a reaction. "How old are most Saiyans when they hit puberty?"

That was hardly the reaction Vegeta had been expecting. "What?"

"How old are most Saiyans when they hit puberty?" he genuinely asked. "I heard that Kakarot was about seventeen when he finally hit it, but his son was only eleven. Is that normal?"

Vegeta paused, and his anger seemed to recede a tad. "Kakarot, like you, was never up against a truly powerful opponent until his mid teens. As such, he had a delayed start to his adulthood. On our homeworld, children were usually pushed into their radical training regimes when they were twelve or thirteen."

Slowly, Tarble lifted his weight onto his elbows. "How about you?"

The room fell silent for a moment before the senior prince answered. "A Saiyan will begin to mature into adulthood when they are pushed into constantly intense, dangerous, combative situations," he slowly spoke. "I was taken away from our home and forced into the ranks of Frieza's army when I was barely seven years old. I was beaten and tortured and forced into combat any hour that I was not in a space pod or a healing tank."

Tarble sat up all the way, suddenly unsure he whether or not he wanted an answer to his big question. "How old were you when you grew up?"

Vegeta looked straight for the wall as he responded. "I was eight and a half when the change began," he quietly spoke. "By the age of thirteen, I was done."

"Holy crap," Tarble whispered. "Is that…is that natural?"

"No," Vegeta quickly answered. "No, it most certainly was not. That was, much to my unhappiness, one of the many reasons that my size is so much more limited than that of the other Saiyans. That is why you will likely outgrow me within the next few years. That was why it was physically difficult for me to adjust to my adult body. It was a terrible, horrible experience. And that, Tarble, is one of the reasons I won't let Trunks train in here for more than a few hours in any given day. I want my son to be able to fight, but I pray he never goes through what I did."

Sensing that the mood was getting a little too emotional for his comfort zone, Vegeta grabbed his brother and hauled him to his feet. "Now, you and I both need to get some aggression out of our systems. I hope you're ready for a long, long day."

Tarble gulped as he tried to find his footing. "Can I have one last request before you beat the snot out of me?"

"What?"

Blushing, Tarble looked down at the pajamas he was wearing. "Can I at least get dressed before I die?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Get someone else to do it."

Bulma rolled her eyes at her husband's attitude, but continued to follow him down the hallway. "Vegeta, you're the only one even vaguely qualified to do this," she calmly pointed out.

Vegeta did not even bother to look back as he marched on, moving faster than before. "I don't care," he bit out. "I am not having that conversation!"

"Vegeta," Bulma prodded on, picking up her pace to match her prince stride for stride, "you knew that this day was coming. You also knew that _you_ were going to have to be the one to take care of it. Honestly, I don't know what you've got your panties in a twist for."

"Woman…"

"What?" Bulma honestly defended. "You already had to give The Talk to Gohan. What's the big deal about giving it to Tarble?"

The prince entered their bedroom and turned around, glaring at his wife. "First of all, I was not exactly thrilled to tell Kakarot's firstborn about the mechanics of becoming an adult. Secondly, at least the damn kid kept his inquisitions strictly one sided."

Raising an eyebrow, Bulma simply asked, "As in, he didn't ask you about your own adolescence?"

"No," Vegeta explained in a clearly frustrated tone, "it means that he only asked about how it pertained to _him_."

Again, Bulma looked slightly confused. Her big blue eyes moved back and forth as her mind worked through what her husband was not telling her. They widened as she came to a conclusion, and suddenly, she began to laugh. "Oh, I get it!" she giggled. "He didn't ask for pointers with the fairer sex!"

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "In layman's terms, yes."

Bulma continued to chuckle as she slid a hand up her husband's chest. "Aw, what's the problem?" she teased. "Afraid that if you let some of your secrets out, you might no longer be the champ in bed?"

"Hardly," Vegeta snorted. "I'm the best, I'll always be the best, end of story."

The heiress wrapped her arm around her prince's neck and smirked at him. "Then what's the problem with it?"

"The problem," Vegeta clarified, "is that I could answer questions about how to pleasure a human woman. I have no bloody idea what Gure's people do for procreation, and I'm sure as hell not about to go ask."

Pulling back slightly, Bulma considered her husband's predicament. "Well," she slowly began, "I suppose that I could do a little recon work for you this afternoon when I hang out with her. After all, one should always go into battle well prepared." She nodded, mostly to herself, before adding, "Of course, to be truly prepared, one must _train intensively_ first…"

The Saiyan smirked at his wife's choice of words and closed the gap between them. Perhaps the day would not be so bad after all.

/

Armed with his new information, Vegeta awaited his brother's arrival in the gravity room. He secretly held on to his wish that someone else, _anyone_ else, could take over that particular task. Unfortunately, Bulma was right. He really was the only one qualified for the position. Gohan's limited experiences would leave him unable to answer many likely questions, and it still seemed a puzzle to all how the seemingly ignorant Kakarot had managed to produce offspring. Twice, no less.

Not only that, but it had not escaped him that it was not the last time he would have to perform that particular task. In only a few years Trunks would need it, and where the brat went, the little idiot usually followed. The prince shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Just once," he muttered to himself, "can't someone's balls drop around here _without_ my assistance?"

After a few minutes, a tentative knock came on the door. Vegeta shook his head again before opening the door. "You know," he pointed out in an extremely annoyed tone, "you do have your own damn access code."

Tarble nodded, but averted his gaze. It had only been a day since the incident with Trunks in the kitchen, and Tarble was still in a fair amount of pain from the so called training session that followed. When he had been told to report to the gravity room, he had actually been so afraid that he had considered running away and hiding instead of actually showing up. However, that thought had only lasted for about a minute. The logical part of his mind had, thankfully, managed to point out that not showing up and making Vegeta hunt him down would likely be at least twice as painful.

Hesitantly, the younger brother brought his eyes up. "So, what level are we training at today?" he shakily asked.

"We're not."

That certainly caught the little prince off guard. "We're not training today?"

Vegeta huffed and glanced toward the gravity console. "I had not intended to, but if you would rather have me beat your ass down…"

"No, that's okay!" Tarble quickly insisted, waving his hands defensively. "I just thought…I mean, since we usually…it only stood to reason that…" The prince took a few breaths and shook out his mind. "Why, exactly, am I here?" he managed to squeak out.

"Because apparently fate is making me pay for my past," the elder prince growled.

Tarble blinked, confused but still apprehensive. "What?"

Vegeta groaned. "Just sit your ass down." He paced around for a few seconds before sitting against the curved wall, not particularly near his brother. "You have entered a new stage in life."

Unable to stop himself, a trait that Tarble swore was going to get himself killed, the younger of the pair responded with, "Well, obviously." His hands snapped over his mouth instantly and his eyes bulged wide. "I'm sorry," he called out, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Do you want help surviving the next few years or not?" Vegeta bit out.

Not uttering a word, Tarble nodded vigorously. His hands remained clasped firmly over his mouth for fear that he would once again say something stupid.

Leaning his head back against the wall, Vegeta closed his eyes. "Let's cut to the chase. You are going to tell me what you already know about puberty and procreation, and I will assist you with the knowledge you are lacking. Then we will never speak of this again."

Tarble nodded and slowly lowered his hands. He crossed his legs and folded his hands in his lap. "So, this is that whole 'now you are a man' talk?"

"No, this is the 'my wife is making me do this so let's get it done and over with' talk," Vegeta sneered, glaring at his brother. "Now start talking!"

Tarble gulped, but he actually felt slightly relieved. With his current injuries, training might have been more than he could have handled. Talking, on the other hand, was something that he did quite well. "Let me assure you, this will not be as bad as you think," he opened with. "I have already been educated in such matters, so this will probably be a brief meeting."

"I'll bet," Vegeta muttered.

Pretending he did not hear that, Tarble simply went on. "Vegeta, I already know that it is during puberty that the body matures into one of an adult. Hormones are often left out of balance, leading to potential mood swings, fatigue, and general poor feelings. Growth is often rapid at the beginning of this phase, causing some difficulty with coordination."

_So far, so good_, Vegeta thought. He sincerely hoped that Tarble really did know everything already and that he could kick the boy out and return to his own training for the remainder of the day.

"When adolescence has been completed," Tarble went on, "it becomes possible to begin creating offspring."

Vegeta rolled his eyes. It was hardly a secret that many children actually were the result of two idiots still within the stages of puberty. That was one thing that would need to be corrected…

Tarble continued with his explanation. "When the female reaches maturity, she lays an egg inside her nesting grounds."

The elder prince groaned and closed his eyes, once again leaning it back against the wall. _And here we go…_

"The male comes by later to fertilize the egg by emptying out his…"

"Alright, stop right there," Vegeta interrupted.

Tarble jerked slightly, surprised by his brother's outburst. "I'm sorry?"

Vegeta got to his feet and shook out his legs. "I am not going to sit here and explain the mating rituals and practices of a species that is not your own."

Some of the color seemed to drain from the younger prince's face. "Wait, what?" He slowly tucked his legs underneath his body to get up to his feet.

"That's not what Saiyans do," Vegeta responded, clearly disgusted by his own brother's ignorance.

Tentatively, Tarble stood all the way up. "That…that isn't how it works?" he nervously asked. "But that's how everyone else does it!"

"No, it isn't."

"Yes," Tarble insisted, "it is!"

"No," the elder prince bit out yet again. "How the hell did you manage to make it to forty without encountering a race that reproduces using sexual intercourse?"

The younger of the pair raised an eyebrow. "What?"

Vegeta turned a deadly glare in the direction of the ceiling. "I swear, I am going to get back at you for this," he growled to the gods. Eventually, he turned his attention back toward his younger brother. "Alright, you moron, listen up because I am only going to say this once. _This_ is how Saiyans reproduce…"

/

Two hours later found a very frustrated Vegeta and an extremely pale Tarble both sitting on the floor of the gravity room. Vegeta's arms were, as usual, crossed over his chest. Tarble, on the other hand, was in a more reclined position, with his hands supporting his weight

Very shakily, Tarble brought one of his hands up to his hair. "So, you're telling me that the female does not lay an egg?"

"No," Vegeta snipped.

"And…and she _carries _it _inside_ her body?" he went on.

"Yes."

Tarble had to draw a few steadying breaths. The image of a female with a growing person inside actually made him nauseous. "And…and the only way for that to happen is for the male to get a…"

"Yes."

"And the female will…"

"Yes."

A downright disgusted and horrified look etched itself onto the younger brother's face. "And he actually _inserts_ it into her…"

"Yes."

"And then he…"

"Yes."

Tarble looked like he was going to be sick. "And you are actually telling me that this is supposed to be _fun?_" he balked.

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "_Yes_," he bit out. "It is fun! It is a lot of fun! That's why we do it, you moron!"

There was absolutely no color left anywhere on Tarble as he stammered out, "So, you've actually…"

"Hell yeah, the last time was two hours ago," the elder brother smugly concluded. "Yes, it was designed for the purposes of reproducing, but it is also a fantastic form of recreation."

Tarble just stared at the wall in front of him. It felt like his brain was about to start leaking out of his ears. There was just so much more information there than Tarble had ever thought possible about such a seemingly simple subject, and quite frankly, it made him sick to think about it. He was not even sure if Gure _had_ some of the body parts Vegeta had mentioned.

After two minutes of silence passed, Vegeta analyzed his younger brother. "Any further questions?" he bit out.

The younger prince just continued to sit in stunned silence.

Vegeta leaned forward slightly. "Tarble?" he questioned.

No answer.

"Tarble?"

When no answer came again, Vegeta got to his feet and dusted himself off. He opened the door to the gravity room and called out, "When you're brain starts working again, lunch should be ready."

They did not see Tarble again until dinner.


	11. Chapter 11

It was two in the morning, and Tarble could not sleep at all. It felt as though there was a powerful energy that he could not control at all coursing through his veins, and he was dying for a way to get it out. However, in spite of having been granted his own access code to the infamous gravity room, he did not dare to enter it on his own. Such an idea seemed, in his mind, like suicide.

His brother practically lived in that room, and he knew that it was not at all uncommon for the elder prince to visit it in the dead hours of the night. When exactly Vegeta slept was still a mystery to the younger of the brothers. While Tarble regularly needed several hours of sleep on any given night, it rarely seemed that his brother got more than two or three. Tarble had actually spent more time than he would care to admit pondering the odd habits his brother seemed to exhibit.

As such, he was extremely reluctant to enter the sacred grounds of the gravity room. Vegeta could wake up at any moment, and Tarble sure as hell did not want to be cornered in there in the middle of the night.

However, that left Tarble with the sensation of the walls practically closing in around him. He needed to move, he needed to fly, he needed to do something, anything, to get rid of the unbearable amount of energy he had. Pacing the halls was just not cutting it for him. If anything, it was making it worse. It had been three hours since he had tried to go to bed, and he had been wide awake the entire time. He had forced himself to lie still until Gure had fallen asleep, not wishing to disturb his wife, but as soon as he was certain that she was asleep, he had taken to the hallways.

The pressure had been growing and growing for days, and it had finally hit an all time high. Tarble was no longer sure that he could tolerate the severely relentless feelings that were bubbling up. Training with his brother would take the edge off, but it had come back with a vengeance. If he did not do something soon, he honestly thought that he might explode.

"Oh, the hell with it," he grumbled to himself. Making a swift turn on his heel, Tarble made a beeline for the gravity room.

Entering his code with a mild curse, Tarble entered the intense room with a look of determination on his face. That look, though, did not match the anxiety he felt in his heart. That round space had not seemed so large since the first time his brother had dragged him in months ago. Without someone who was intimately familiar with the controls, Tarble was more than a little concerned for his safety. While Vegeta would 'spar' with him, a practice that Tarble found grossly unfair and one sided, at least the elder prince was in full control. The awesome power of the room, and its potentially fatal consequences, really did frighten the smaller prince.

He was determined, though. As much as he feared the power of the room, he was even more afraid of what his brother would be like if interrupted in his rare sleep. The gravity room might kill him. Vegeta almost certainly would. With a firm step, the young prince closed the door behind him and strode up to the control console.

Had he put any thought at all into his plan, Tarble might have been able to hold out until the morning. He had never actually set the levels or activated the machine in his life. Sure, he had watched Vegeta do it, but Tarble had never actually touched it himself. He was also in his pajamas, having not wanted to wake his wife while changing. And to top it all off, he was standing in an environment where one should probably be wearing more than tube socks on their feet.

"Let's see here," the young prince muttered, looking down at the control panel. "I know that this activates it, so I guess I'll start it and adjust the pressure from there."

What the younger brother did not seem to realize was that Vegeta had been in there just a few hours earlier, training at his own high levels. When Tarble activated the machine, set at a solid seven hundred times the gravity of Earth, he found himself slammed violently down to the floor.

Tarble never knew what hit him. One moment he had been itching to move, and the next he was in utter agony. Instead of the usual hum of the chamber, all he could hear was a high ringing. He could not move, he could not open his eyes, he could not even breath. Unable to stop it at all, Tarble felt his bones crushing in to his organs.

It was hell. Organs began to shred and leak into his body. Natural toxins were released, quickly beginning to eat away at anything they could get to. Every passing second tore his bones into smaller and smaller pieces, fracturing them throughout. With a sickening crunch, Tarble felt his cheek collapsing under the enormous pressure. He wanted to scream and cry, anything to help release his torturous sensations, but he was not even close to powerful enough for those simple tasks.

Only seven seconds had passed before Tarble began wishing to die. It was all too much for him to bear. Every nerve in his system screamed in anguish, and he absolutely could not endure it.

As his thoughts began to drift into the bliss of nothingness, he was vaguely aware of a shift in the atmosphere. That was all there was before everything faded away.

/

A day and a half later, Tarble slowly opened his eyes. His body still ached, but compared to the last moments of sensation he had experienced, he felt downright fine. With a mild sniff of his nose, Tarble opened his mouth and took several fairly shallow breaths of air.

"You're a moron."

Slowly, against the wishes of the strained muscles in his neck, Tarble looked to his side. Vegeta was leaning against the wall of the infirmary, glaring down at his younger brother. Swallowing the spit in his throat, Tarble asked, "What happened?"

Narrowing his eyes dangerously, Vegeta bit out, "You turned on the gravity at seven hundred g's, you simpleton."

"I what?" Tarble asked, trying to remember how he got there.

The elder prince continued to glare. "You did not reprogram the damn machine to your own level, you imbecile."

"Oh," Tarble softly answered, turning his eyes toward the wall. "I didn't know what level it was at."

With a snort, Vegeta shook his head. "Right, because reading the damn console before you turn the blasted thing on was too much to ask."

Tarble kept his eyes on the wall, a sense of self pity washing over his battered body. "I suppose that I made a mistake," he morosely admitted. "I really should have considered the consequences to my actions before using something that was not mine."

"Like all perpetual adolescents do?" Vegeta replied, taking a shot at his brother.

"I understand," Tarble mumbled, hanging his head in shame.

Keeping a condescending eye on the younger prince, Vegeta bit out, "You understand that you are too idiotic to consider a simple cause and effect situation, do you?"

The younger brother glared right back at his brother. "It's not like you ever showed me how to use the machine."

"You never asked," Vegeta impatiently countered. "And you were a damn fool to attempt to use it without knowing what the hell you were doing. Honestly, were you _trying_ to kill yourself?"

A sharp laugh sounded from the doorway, and both prince's looked up to find both Bulma and Gure standing in the doorway. And Bulma was laughing hysterically. As she continued to bray, Gure scurried over to the bed and hopped up onto it with her husband.

As the couple gently talked with one another, Bulma had to wipe a tear of amusement from her bright blue eyes. "Oh, man, if you could have heard yourself…" A fresh wave of giggles washed over the heiress, and she actually had to stop walking. "Oh, that was priceless!"

"What the hell are you babbling about, woman?" the elder prince snarled.

"That speech!" Bulma laughed, holding her sides as she did so. "That's the same damn speech I gave you every time _you_ nearly killed yourself in there!"

Turning a remarkable shade of red, Vegeta fisted his hands at his side. "That's a damn lie!" he shouted.

Still giggling, Bulma placed a hand on her husband's shoulder. "Oh, sure it is," she teased. She gave him a little hug, ignoring his clearly foul mood. "I have said practically those exact words to you so many times that I've honestly stopped keeping track!"

Hearing the chortle to his side, Vegeta shot a deathly glare at his brother and sister-in-law. While Tarble interpreted the act as the threat it was meant to be, Gure could not seem to get over the combination of the look and the color that was occupying the senior prince's face and giggled even louder.

Vegeta opened his mouth, more than ready to retaliate, but Bulma quickly got in his way. "Come on," she gently said, managing to keep her amusement minimized enough to talk, "let's give them a moment. When they're done, you can go back to scolding him to your heart's content."

With only a mild grumble, the prince acquiesced to his wife's request. After all, it had become apparent that it was difficult to get a good, venomous lecture going when his wife was in the room. Bulma had a knack for ruining a good bad mood…

/

Tarble coughed as he opened his eyes again. He was feeling infinitely stronger than he had been since the incident. It was odd to think back on it. He was aware of the fact that he had almost died, just as he was aware that it had the single most painful experience of his life, but at the same time it all felt like a hazy dream to him.

"You know, you really are an idiot."

The words were familiar to the prince, but the voice and the tone were not. Tarble looked to the side and noticed that his sister-in-law was sitting beside his bed. "How long have you been there?" he asked.

Bulma offered him a smile. "Long enough to know that you and your brother run the same gamut of facial expressions when recovering from a near death incident."

Slowly, Tarble used his arms to prop his body up against his pillows. For the first time, he noticed the tubes that were running in and out of his body. "What the hell happened?" he wondered aloud. "Did I really almost die?"

That smile dropped from Bulma's face, and worry overcame her features as she remembered exactly what had happened. "You were compressed by an enormous amount of pressure," she quietly explained. "Just about every bone and organ in your body was virtually destroyed."

Tarble held up his arms, staring at the tubes. "It really was bad, wasn't it?" he softly asked.

"If you had been there just a few seconds longer," Bulma somberly spoke, "you would have been too far gone to even possibly save. Hell, I'm amazed that you survived at all!"

Still staring at the tubing, Tarble shook his head. "How long was I in there?"

"Nine seconds."

Tarble snapped his head to the side. "I was only in there for nine seconds?"

Without making a sound, Bulma nodded.

"How in the name of the gods did anyone get me out in that amount of time?" he questioned, clearly astonished. "I mean, no one else in the house was even awake!"

Slowly, Bulma got to her feet. She stretched out her arms and slowly twisted her back. Her muscles were unbelievably stiff. It had been a long time since she had spent a prolonged amount of time in the chairs of the infirmary, and she had not even been in there all that long by comparison. It was all so familiar that it was actually a little disturbing.

With a tired sigh, the heiress shook her head. "Vegeta got you out of it," she gently told the younger prince. "He must have woken up as soon as you turned the gravity simulator on."

"Vegeta?" Trunks asked, shocked.

Bulma nodded. "I didn't even know what had happened until he used the intercom system to start swearing up and down for me. Whole house woke up when he started yelling."

The young prince simply sat there, flabbergasted. "But…but how did I get here?"

"Vegeta got the power off as fast as he could," the heiress softly went on. "I went over the tapes after the incident. As he was waking half the planet with his bellowing, he…you know what? It's not important."

Tarble sat up quickly, accidentally tugging the lines a little bit. His face had taken a slightly more pale tone as a sense of dread settled in his stomach. "What did he do?"

Blushing slightly and clearly sensing that she had said far too much, Bulma raised her hands defensively and let out a nervous laugh. "Oh, it's nothing! Nothing at all!"

"Bulma," the little prince implored, "what happened?"

The heiress let out a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh. "Tarble, it isn't important."

"If it wasn't important," Tarble insisted, "you would come out and tell me. Clearly it was important, Bulma, so please just tell me what it is!"

Slowly, delicately, Bulma once again took a seat in her chair. "Tarble," she began explaining, "you were in critical condition. You had so little left that worked in your body, and you were far closer to death than I think you really understand. If nothing was done, and fast, you wouldn't have had a prayer."

Tarble sat in silence, that sense of dread intensifying deeply within his stomach.

Looking her brother-in-law, Bulma took up Tarble's hand, mindful of the needle inserted in it. "Tarble, the only way to save you was to cut you open, remove bone fragments from your heart and lungs, and use ki to cauterize them closed. It wasn't pretty, Tarble, but it bought us the time we needed to keep you alive."

Turning a sickly green color, Tarble quickly pulled down the covers and stared at his chest. "But…but I don't see anything!" he cried out. He began patting his chest down, trying to figure out just how he had been crushed and sliced open without a single mark being left.

"Tarble," Bulma counseled, the smile slowly reappearing, "you're not going to find anything. We used a senzu bean on you." Using a long, slender finger, Bulma pointed out the bags at the top of the IV system. "You didn't have enough left of the rest of you in order to eat it, so we had to give it to you intravenously. It took a long time to rebuild your entire system, but it worked!"

Slowly but surely, Tarble leaned back against his pillows as something truly began to sink in. "Vegeta was asleep when I got crushed," he reasoned. "He…he was aware enough of my presence to know that I was in trouble…and he came to help me…"

"A little slow off the mark this evening, are we?" the heiress teased.

"No," Tarble answered, slightly embarrassed by the shot taken at him, "what I meant was that, well…"

"He cared," Bulma finished. She shook her head, clearly amused. "I don't know why it surprises everyone that Vegeta actually gives a damn about his family."

Slowly, Tarble began to smile. The only thing he could say was the only thought that filled his mind. "I'm family…"


	12. Chapter 12

Tarble practically glided down the staircase on his way to breakfast. It was his first day out of bed after nearly killing himself in the gravity room, and he was practically walking on air. His energy was coming back, his appetite had returned with vigor, and he could not keep the grin off his face. Finding out that he was finally considered family had given him a feeling that he had never experienced before. For the first time, he felt like he really had a brother. He had always known that there was the blood relative out there, but for the first time since landing on the planet, there was an actual relationship.

Well, perhaps not a relationship, but at least a true level of comfort. They might not be extremely close, but Tarble finally felt like they were becoming the family he had always dreamed of having. That alone put a remarkable spring in his step. He had long hoped that the big brother he had never known would accept him and take him under wing, and it was at last coming to pass.

As he hopped down the last few stairs, Tarble spotted his nephew and grinned. "Good morning!" he cheerily greeted. "And how are you doing today?"

With more than a little skepticism in his expression, Trunks hesitantly asked, "Are you alright?"

"Of course!" Tarble responded with a laugh. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, there was that whole nearly killing yourself thing," the youngest prince pointed out. "I would've thought that something like that could bring someone down for a week or so."

Tarble shook his head, still grinning. "Nope," he assured with a slight chuckle. "I feel fine. In fact, I feel downright fantastic!"

Trunks popped an eyebrow at his uncle's enthusiasm. "Did you get some last night?"

The grin faltered slightly on Tarble's face. "Some what?" he genuinely asked.

"Some, well, you know," the boy hinted at.

"Trunks," Tarble assured, "I have no idea what you're talking about. What was it I was supposed to get?"

With a snort, Trunks shook his head. "Never mind," he huffed. "If you got it, you'd know."

"Wait," Tarble asked, his grin dropped altogether, "what are you talking about?"

Trunks groaned and closed his eyes, turning away from his uncle. "Oh, don't do this to me," he begged. "I thought Dad already had this talk with you!"

Tarble blinked twice before his eyes opened as wide as they could. "OH!" he gasped, taking a step back. With his eyes still enormous, he stared at his nephew. "Trunks! Why would you even suggest something like that?"

Entering the kitchen, Trunks shrugged one shoulder. "You're acting as weird as my parents do when they..."

"TRUNKS!" Tarble cried out, waving his hands frantically. "You're a child! You shouldn't be talking about such things!"

Remaining completely calm, Trunks opened up the refrigerator and pulled out a large tub of yogurt. "You're such a prude," he muttered, continuing to search through the cold appliance.

Tarble began to sputter in the doorway, utterly incapacitated by his nephew's actions. He remained that way until his wife came down for her morning meal and gave his leg a good thorough shaking.

"Are you alive up there?" she teased.

His face still bright red with shock and embarrassment, Tarble shook his head. "He said..." he stammered, "I mean, he was discussing...how could he know?"

Gure blinked up at her flummoxed husband. "Know about what?"

"Sex," Trunks called out, tearing up a banana and dumping it in the yogurt.

"Oh," Gure calmly responded, patting her husband on the leg. "Well, some families are more open about that, and given how his parents are, it's not all that surprising that..."

That only seemed to make the prince sputter more. "GURE!" he cried. "How could you talk about it like that?"

"What?" the tiny woman asked. "Honey, what wrong with talking about...?"

"How do you even KNOW about it?" he demanded, panic in his voice. "It's not like your race does it!"

Gure giggled and shook her head. "Wow, we kept you inside way too much when you were younger," she laughed. "Sweetie, it's nothing new under the sun. Besides, I asked Bulma for details when we moved in here."

"I don't want to hear them," Trunks grumbled as he ate his food.

The diminutive woman shook her head, still laughing. "Well, all that aside, I'm just glad you're up and about again," she told her husband. "You really scared us there for a while. It's nice to see you bounding about again."

Calming down slightly, Tarble smiled down at his wife. "Thank you," he sincerely said. He glanced around the room for a moment and considered something. "Hey, where are the others?"

"I'm not asking," Trunks shot back, putting his empty tub in the trash can.

Gure laughed. "You have nothing to worry about," she assured. "Your mother told me earlier that she wanted to grab something from her lab, and your father is training. There is nothing going on right now that will scar you for life."

Trunks smirked. "Thanks, Aunt Gure. I guess until my mom gets back, you're the adult in charge."

"Hey!" Tarble snapped. "What about me?"

Trunks shrugged and began to rinse leftover yogurt off of his hands. "You can't be the adult in charge when you're not an adult."

"I am an adult!"

"No," Trunks countered, "you're an adolescent. That means you're like a teenager, not a grown up. If you and I are the only ones around, then yeah, you're the boss. But there's an actual adult here, so she's in charge and you're not."

Gure approached her nephew, her smile not fading for a minute. "Why do you not think of him as an adult?" she gently asked.

"Because he's a whiny little kid!" Trunks shot back. "He complains and he whines and he doesn't act like a grown up at all! I'm not going to listen to someone less mature than Goten if I don't have to!"

"That's unfair," Tarble countered with a stern tone. "I am new to your planet and I have questions. I hardly consider that whining."

"Yeah, well, you still don't act like a grown up," the boy countered. "And if you're not going to act like a grown up, I'm not going to treat you like a grown up."

It was at that moment that the boy's mother entered the room, and from her expression, she had clearly heard that final statement. "Trunks!" she admonished. "Don't you dare talk to him like that! I did not raise you to treat your uncle that way!"

"You didn't teach me how to treat my uncle at all!" her son returned. "I didn't even know I had an uncle until this year! It's not like Dad talked about him ever! For all I knew, Uncle Tarble never existed!"

Though mother and son continued to argue, both oblivious to the pureblooded a Saiyan's features. Tarble looked as though he had been physically slapped across the face. He was stunned, hurt.

Gure saw her husband's reaction and took his hand in hers. "Honey?" she asked. "What's wrong?"

Bulma and Trunks stopped fighting and glanced at Tarble. "Are you okay?" Trunks asked, suddenly concerned.

After several deep breaths, Tarble shook his head. "It's nothing," he softly answered. "I'm fine." Before the others could question him further, he offered a small polite bow. "If you will excuse me," he pardoned, clearing his throat, "there were some things that I was hoping to get done today." He turned his back on his companions and left, offering no further explanation.

The three remaining people exchanged nervous glances. Tarble's behavior was abnormal, and it could not mean anything good.

Tarbles first steps out of the kitchen had been smoothed and controlled, the antithesis of his thoughts and feelings. As he got further from the room, and further from the others, his stride began to grow and pick up speed. He was not sure where he was going or what his final plan was. His feet carried him through the compound faster and faster, his steps losing control along the way.

He was not sure what he was feeling. It was a new sensation to him, whatever it was, and it was maddening. It hurt him. It ached in his heart. Faster and faster and faster he ran, winding his way through the long corridors of the compound. Without even being aware of it, he had found himself standing in front of the door to the gravity chamber.

His fists slammed against the cool, metal surface. Furiously, he pounded away at the door. He began to yell at it, not any words but wild shouts as he hammered away at it. As he wailed on the door, he was so caught up in his frenzy that he did not even notice that the door opened up and his brother filled that spot.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Vegeta demanded, catching Tarble's wrists and forcing him to stop moving.

Tarble kicked at the elder prince, and shouted in frustration when it proved to be a futile effort. He fought to free his arms, but no matter how hard he struggled, Vegeta held him firm.

"Calm down, you lunatic!" the elder prince shouted down. "If you do not cease this meaningless effort, I will force you to!"

Tarble calmed down, but only slightly. He glared furiously at his brother, but he managed to still his body. "You son of a bitch," he growled.

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "If you think that statement narrows anything down, try again. The woman calls me that so many times a day that it could mean anything from a genuine offense I have committed to a generic greeting."

"You want to know?" the younger brother demanded. "You want to know why I am mad at you?"

"How was that not clear?" Vegeta sneered, tightening his grip on Tarble's wrists.

Tarble began to attempt to wrench his hands free, but had little hope of success. "Let go!" he demanded.

"No," Vegeta growled back. "Now tell me what the hell is going on or I will haul your scrawny ass in here and turn the gravity up as high as it goes. As I recall, you do not fare well under such conditions."

Snarling up at his brother, Tarble held his glare. "Why wasn't I important to you?"

The question caught Vegeta off guard, but his expression did not falter. "Did we not cover this when you decided to blindly walk in on my life? Because I seem to recall with immaculate detail that we have already held this discussion."

"You never even told them about me!" Tarble fought. "You never told your family I existed!"

Vegeta shrugged his shoulders, but still held his brother firm. "Why would I?" he countered. "We had never met one another. What possible reason is there to tell someone about a person you have barely heard of and never met?"

Tarble once again tried to free himself, but it was starting to dawn on him that the harder he fought, the tighter his wrists were being squeezed. "Are you kidding me?" he yelled. "I am family!"

The younger prince suddenly found himself being roughly hauled into the circular room and thrown against a wall. He was vaguely aware of the sound of the door being slammed shut, but he was so stunned that he was struggling simply to get back up on his feet. That achievement was short lived, though, as he felt the familiar sensation of his brother's fist against his cheek.

He yelped in surprise and pain, completely unprepared for a fight. He had no time to form a strategy, though, before he was hit again and forced to the floor.

Vegeta slammed a booted foot on his brother's chest, barely allowing the younger Saiyan to breathe. "Listen to me and listen carefully," he growled. "I have no idea what has set off this juvenile temper tantrum in you, but I am sick of it. I am sick of having to listen to your pitiful little complaints any time something does not play out exactly how you want it to. I am sick of how you demand to be treated as an adult and yet persist in your childish mannerisms. But more than any of that," he spat, "I am damn sick of listening to you bitching and moaning every single time it dawns on you that until recently, I did not give a damn about you."

Tarble tried to sit up, but that only led his brother to apply more pressure to his chest.

"You have no idea at all what it means to stand on your own two feet, do you?" Vegeta sneered. "You have never had to fight to survive. And that miserable fact is magnified a thousand fold every time you throw these fits." Just barely he lightened the pressure on Tarble's chest, effectively keeping him pinned without allowing him to get up. "Now, I was having a fairly decent morning before you barged in, so I shall be merciful. But I warn you, the next time you interrupt my training with such trivial intentions, I will not hold back."

With a grunt, Tarble shoved his brothers foot away and rolled over. "I still don't get it," he growled in return. "Why? Why did you not care for me? And why the hell did you punch me for asking the question?"

Vegeta glared at the younger Saiyan and crossed his arms. "And I still do not understand why you insist on making such an issue out of it. You did nothing for me, I did nothing for you, end of story. Now get out."

Tarble scurried for the door, but he paused before he left. "Vegeta?"

"What?" the elder brother growled back.

Pausing, Tarble glanced from the door and back. "Are we a family?"

Vegeta growled. "As you seem to perpetuate nonsensical ideas of what a family is, I am going to say no."

Tarble felt something inside him crumble. "But...you saved me..."

"So?"

Tears quickly came to the corner of the smaller one's eyes, and he turned away. He knew that Vegeta would admonish him for something as weak as crying, and he refused to give the man any more ammunition than he already had. "Very well," he quietly spoke, refusing to look at Vegeta, "I will not be bothering you again."

Rolling his eyes, Vegeta prepared to train again, uttering a simple, "Whatever." Neither one of them spoke again as Tarble walked out. Neither one of them looked at one another. Neither one of them cared what the other one thought.

They were not a family.


	13. Chapter 13

Tarble stormed down the hallway, absolutely fuming. After all the time they had spent with each other, after all the moments they had shared together, after every little thing they had done together, Vegeta had still refused to call them brothers. The knowledge that he had worked his ass of for months on end for nothing angered Tarble so much that the prince could barely see straight.

"Stupid, miserable son of a…" He turned a corner and grunted, running straight into his nephew. "What?" he demanded.

Trunks cocked a purple eyebrow at his uncle. "What?" he turned around to the man. "I am walking through the hallways of my own house. Why, what are you doing?"

Tarble sneered at the boy. "What, you suddenly care?"

"Watch it," the little boy warned. "I whooped you _accidentally_ the other day. Don't tempt me to actually put effort into it, because you don't stand a chance against me and I'm pretty sure you already know that."

Looking away slightly but unwilling to drop his mood, Tarble snorted. "God, you're just like him."

Trunks' eyes narrowed dangerously. "What did you say?" he challenged.

"You're just like Vegeta," Tarble sneered back. "And, by the way, that's not a good thing."

Not even aware of it, Trunks began to raise his power level as he stared down his uncle. "You listen to me and you listen good," the boy growled. "I have no idea what bug crawled inside your butt and died there, but I don't care. I have been listening to you trash Dad since you decided to make yourself at home in _my_ house, and I am damn sick of it. No matter what you say, my dad is a good guy. A badass, but a good guy. And if you ever, _ever_, talk about my dad like that again, I am going to beat you to death with my own two hands. We protect our own in this house, and if you're not with us, you're against us." The boy floated up, getting perfectly level with his uncle's eyes. "So you can either treat my family with actual respect, or you can get the hell out of my house. Take your damn pick."

Tarble took a step back, his eyes wide with fear. Somehow, he did not doubt that Trunks would do just as promised, and it genuinely frightened him. He was at a total loss for how to resolve the situation, and no matter how hard he tried, no words would come out.

A deep throat cleared behind him, and Tarble nervously turned around to find Vegeta standing behind them. "Boy," he commanded, "you were to be in the gravity room three minutes ago. Get in there. Now."

Trunks lowered down to the ground, but he held his glare with his uncle as he walked past the man. He circled around his uncle angrily before moving beyond and heading for his own training.

Tarble nervously looked from the retreating boy to the senior prince. Vegeta's glare could put Trunks' to shame, and Tarble actually began to back away from it. He turned from the man he had once called brother and went straight for his room, slamming the door upon his entry and cracking the frame.

He was starting to feel like it was impossible to stay in that home any longer. The last few weeks had been brutal, and not just physically. The incident with Trunks in the kitchen, the crushing in the training room, what his broth…Vegeta had told him, it was all too much for him. Perhaps the boy had been right. Perhaps it would be best if he just left.

Turning to the inside of his room, Tarble frowned. He and Gure, particularly Gure, had gotten a number of new possessions since their arrival at the compound. There was no way for most of it to fit into their pods when they left. There was extremely little storage in their ships, and even if they were willing to put a significant amount on their laps, it would be impossible to take most of it. They would have to pick carefully what they could and could not take with them.

Carefully, began to shift through what belongings they had. Most of it he would have no problem leaving behind, but Gure would probably have a harder time choosing what to take with her. Back on her home world, Gure had been surrounded by her possessions, many she had treasured dearly. Leaving that all behind had been hard for the woman, and Tarble knew it. His wife had actually been forming a fairly comfortable life again.

Tarble frowned as he thought about it. Gure was not likely to want to leave. She had formed a sisterly relationship with Bulma, one that Tarble was quite envious of. And Gure had never been happy when they had been moving from place to place, and was quite happy having a place to call home again.

But staying was no longer an option in Tarble's mind. The bridge that he had hoped to build with Vegeta was burned, and Trunks had seemed only too happy to throw fuel on that fire. It was no longer feasible to try to make anything from it. It was time to leave.

Pulling a few things from his drawers, Tarble began to pack. Yes, it was time to leave. For good.

/

Bulma poured tea into Gure's cup and shook her head. "I have no idea what had gotten into the boys," she grumbled, switching to her own cup. "I am so sorry if they have done something to make you or your husband feel uncomfortable."

Gure just laughed as she picked up her teacup. "Don't worry about it," she assured. "I know that things have been a little tense around in the last couple weeks, but I assure you that it is not your side that is causing the tension. Trunks was not all that far off when he called Tarble a teenager."

"He shouldn't have done it," Bulma responded with a frown, taking her seat. "I swear, I don't know what I'm going to do with that boy sometimes."

Gure giggled, sipping at her hot beverage. "I like him," she told her sister-in-law. "He's got a healthy dose of spunk. It makes him fun."

"It makes him obnoxious sometimes," Bulma countered, sipping her own drink. "I am planning on having a good long talk with that boy about how to treat family."

But the shorter woman waved it off completely. "Bulma," she explained with a smile, "Trunks was right this morning. He never had family before that didn't live with him his entire life. There was no way for him to be ready for an aunt and uncle moving in without warning."

Letting out a tired sigh, Bulma shook her head. "Maybe," she consented, "but he knows how to treat _people_. And, more importantly, he knows how he's supposed to treat an adult. That boy crossed a line."

"I don't know," Gure countered. "I actually found myself agreeing with Trunks a little bit. Ever since we got here, Tarble really has been acting more like a child than an adult. And quite frankly, I always thought that he's been expecting far too much from all of you."

Bulma blinked in surprised. "Hardly!" the heiress insisted. "Tarble has been so sweet to us!"

"Perhaps to you," Gure mentioned, taking another sip, "but he has not been all that great to your husband or your son."

"Oh, that's not true," Bulma countered. "Trunks is just being a little brat because he has to share his father for the first time in his life, and while I love Vegeta with all my heart, he can be such a little bitch sometimes."

Gure giggled again. "No one is perfect," she assured, "and that's the problem. Tarble has been running this fantasy through his mind for years of what it would be like to have a big brother and a more traditional family that was _his_. He's lived with his fantasy for so long that he's having a hard time with reality and, quite frankly, I think he's taking it out on your husband and son."

Setting her teacup down, the heiress shook her head. "Lord, this is the Mirai situation all over again."

"I'm sorry, what?" Gure asked.

With another sigh, Bulma grabbed the teapot and began to refill her cup. "Years ago, we had an…incident," she slowly explained. "Before Vegeta and I ever got together, this kid showed up in a time machine and essentially told us that the end of the world was coming and that we needed to start preparing immediately. We had three years to prepare for a threat that, as we had been told, would turn this world into a desolate wasteland."

Gure slowly drank her tea, listening carefully to her sister-in-law.

"During that time," Bulma went on, a faint blush on her cheeks, "Vegeta and I began to form our obscure relationship. We weren't in love or anything back then, but we were certainly getting off to a solid start."

Letting out a chuckle, Gure remembered a piece of the story that had been told to her a while ago. "That was how you ended up with your remarkable son," she giggled.

"Yeah," Bulma admitted. "And that entire story can be told another day. But the big problem came at the end of the three year wait, when that kid showed up again in his time machine and we figured out that it was Trunks from the future."

That certainly caught the smaller woman off guard. "You met your son before he was ever conceived?" she asked.

"Well, we met a version of him," she clarified. "In that boy's timeline, our warriors were not prepared for the threat and most of them were dead. In the end, Trunks and I had been the only ones to survive in that timeline. That version of Trunks grew up in a warzone without protection, safety, or a father."

Gure was quickly starting to piece the situation together, but she chose to keep quiet and listen.

Bulma sighed, staring into her teacup. "Vegeta and I were having enough issues on our own at the time," she quietly admitted, "but then all of a sudden we had an adult version of our son in our lives, and things got very tense very fast. Mirai, which is what we call that Trunks sometimes, was used to me. He knew what would set off a mood swing in me, and knew how to coexist with me happily. But he had never met Vegeta before, and back then, Vegeta was _far_ more intense."

"I can imagine," Gure softly mentioned. "I must say, the Saiyan I met when we arrived did not match the one from the stories we had heard. We know all about his past. His reputation preceded him in our system." She took a long sip of her tea before calmly placing it back down on the saucer. "Your husband was actually quite a pleasant surprise to me. But like I said, I can imagine what he would have been like right after the Empire fell."

"Not pleasant," Bulma affirmed. "And Mirai had spent seventeen years creating this dream version of a father in his mind, so when the two of them actually met…"

"It did not go well," Gure was able to easily guess.

Bulma shook her head. "Not even a little bit," she sighed. "Mirai expected too much from Vegeta, and Vegeta in turn deliberately went out of his way to get the poor boy to hate him. They made each other unbelievably miserable."

Gure sat up a little straighter. "Oh, Bulma, I wish you had told me about this when we first got here," she implored. "I could have talked to Tarble and…"

"And made the situation even worse," the heiress interrupted. "Believe me, the only thing that pisses off Vegeta more than expecting him to be emotionally available is showing any attempt to coddle him. Walking on eggshells for him is a great way to get him to hate you."

Sighing, Gure sat back a little bit. "I suppose you're right," she relented. "But that still does not excuse the way my husband has been treating yours. Tarble did not get his fantasy of a long lost brother desperate to make up for lost time, and that's his problem. Your son has been right, Tarble has not been acting his actual age. Frankly, I don't know what I'll have to do to get him to act like he used to. I swear, he's started seeing Trunks like some kind of competition for Vegeta's attention."

Bulma frowned as she thought about that. "And Tarble's been winning," she quickly realized. "Vegeta's been so busy trying to push his brother through adolescence that he's had to cut into his time with Trunks significantly. Ugh, that's why Trunks has been acting like such a brat! I can't believe I didn't get that!"

Gure nodded. "You know what might do us all some good?" she pitched. "Why don't Tarble and I go explore your planet for a few days? We could go sightseeing, maybe get one of your friends to show us around, and your family can actually have some time to yourselves."

With a smile on her face, Bulma put down her teacup. "That would actually be great," she admitted. "I think I could probably get Krillen or Goku to take you guys around for a few days."

"It's settled, then!" Gure happily announced. "You just let us know when everything is set up, and we'll get out of your hair for a few days." The little woman glanced up, noticing her husband as he entered the room. "Oh, honey! Good, you're here. I wanted to talk to you about taking a trip!"

Very tensely, the Saiyan nodded. "Actually, so did I…"


	14. Chapter 14

"Gure, I would really like to talk to you about this in private," the young prince told his wife, warily eying his sister-in-law.

Bulma, however, did not miss the look for a second. "What's going on, Tarble?" she demanded. Tarble's face was as blank as he could make it, but after years of living with Vegeta, it was not difficult for the heiress to decipher the look. "What are you planning to do?"

Gure placed her teacup on the saucer and glanced between her sister-in-law and her husband. She was not entirely certain what was going on, but she had a feeling that the safest thing she could do for the time being was to sit patiently.

"I told you," Tarble ground out, his anger more visible than before, "I have something to discuss with my wife."

"Oh no you don't, mister," the heiress retorted, getting to her feet and putting her hands on her hips. "I know that look. You're about to do something stupid, so you might as well just tell us what it is so we can talk you out of it."

"Stop pretending that you know me!" Tarble yelled back.

Bulma rolled her eyes, ultimately unphased. "Temper tantrums are not going to slow me down." Slowly, the blue haired woman approached her brother-in-law and glared at him. "What's up?"

"Bulma," Gure softly interrupted, pulling on her dear friend's sleeve, "leave him be."

"He's up to something," the heiress retaliated. "I don't like it when people in my home are trying to pull a fast one on me. Now he can either talk me about it or else."

Tarble stepped up, glaring at the scientist as fiercely as he could. "Or else what?" he challenged.

But once again, years with Vegeta have given the woman a temperance toward such threats, particularly when spoken with such poor skill. "Don't tempt me," she darkly replied. "Ask your brother if you doubt my ability to make someone's life a living hell."

"I have no brother."

The woman took a step back and her jaw dropped. "Tarble! What the hell has gotten in to you?"

The Saiyan, though, was fed up. Not bothering to say another word to his sister-in-law, Tarble stalked forward and grabbed his wife's arm. He pulled her aggressively behind him, dragging her into the living room.

"Tarble?" the small woman quietly asked. "What's wrong?"

"We're leaving," he growled, not looking his wife in the eye.

Gure's eyes were enormous in an instant. "What are you talking about?"

"We're leaving," the Saiyan said again. Once again, he refused to look the little woman in the eye. He knew that she would not want to leave, but in his own mind, they had no choice. "Pack what you can."

Gure struggled to pull her arm free, but the grip was too tight for her to get far. "Tarble, stop it," she gently pleaded. The grip was so tight that it was actually starting to hurt.

Tarble shook his head, staring down the hall. "You need to pack."

"Tarble, you're hurting me," she told him, her voice moving into the poor tones of a whimper.

His hand opened in a flash, and Tarble glanced down at the arm. He had not been fully aware of how hard he had been holding her, but the difference in color was enough to tell him that he had used excessive force. "Forgive me," he gently spoke, dropping his hands to his sides. "But please hurry up."

"No," the tiny woman firmly stated, standing her ground. "Tarble, we are not going to go anywhere until you tell me exactly what is going on here. Now tell me," she urged, floating up to cup her husband's face. "Tell me what happened."

"I can't stay," he softly growled back. "I can't stay with him any longer."

"But why?" Gure demanded. "Tarble, tell me what happened with you and your brother!"

"_I don't have a brother!_" the Saiyan roared. In his rage, he grabbed the corner of the couch and launched it across the room. It smashed into the wall, splintering into a thousand shards and sending clouds of dust through the air.

The slap echoed through the room, and Tarble's head snapped to the side from the force. Stunned, all he could do was stare at the wall, wondering what had just happened. Never, in all the years they had known each other, had they ever caused one another pain. And yet there they were, Gure with a bruised arm and Tarble with wounded face, neither one seeming truly repentant of their actions.

"What is the matter with you?" Gure demanded, still hovering in the air. Her palm stung from her actions, and she shook it out slightly. "What happened?"

Tarble continued to stare at the wall. How could she strike him? How could she do that to him? After everything they had been through, how could she?"

"Tarble," Gure softly said, her tone once again taking a gently approach, "tell me what happened to you." With a tender touch, she guided his face forward. "I'm sorry I hit you," she whispered. "Please, talk to me."

"You hit me," he bluntly stated.

"I know," Tarble softly replied. "I shouldn't have done that. I am sorry that I did. I just didn't know what to do." She brushed the collecting dust off of his cheeks with her thumbs. "You were scaring me, Tarble."

Tarble's breath hitched, and he dropped his eyes to the floor. "I didn't mean to," he whispered.

Gure shook her head, letting out a tired sigh. "I know," she told him, "but whether you meant to or not, you did. Talk to me, Tarble. Tell me what's going on."

Not for a moment did he raise his gaze. "He said I'm not his brother."

"What?"

"He said I am not his brother," Tarble said, a little more clearly. He was trembling, and Gure did not miss the droplets of sweat forming along his neck. "He said we were not family."

Gure frowned, a rare expression for her. She had never seen her husband in such a state before. There was so much anger, so much hatred. In all the years she had known him, through all their trials and tribulations together, not once had she seen him that hateful. "Tarble," she softly spoke, trying to keep her voice loving but firm, "you need to calm down."

"This was all meaningless," the prince hissed, his anger rising once more. "I came for a brother, and he led me on. He never intended to be one, but he kept me here anyway!"

"No one kept us here, honey," the petite woman told her husband. "We were invited to stay. You were offered a home. They never said that we could not leave whenever we wished."

"Then let's leave," Tarble shot back. "We'll leave and never come back."

"Tarble..." Gure no longer knew what to do. She wanted to tell him that he was just a little emotional right now, that if he could calm down, they could work something out. More than that, she wanted to tell him that she was tired of running from world to world and barely getting by. She had a home again, damn it, and she wanted to stay. But with Tarble so angry, and clearly barely in control, she was, for the first time, afraid to talk to him. With her hands trembling slightly, she dropped to the floor. She was at a total loss, and without saying another word, she turned her back on him and walked back toward the kitchen.

Shocked by her reaction, Tarble began to follow his wife. He did not know why she had left him, only that it hurt when she was gone. "Gure?" he called out, jogging after her. He rounded the corner into the kitchen, but found himself blocked by his sister-in-law.

"No," Bulma firmly stated, opening up her arms to widen her stance. "You're not getting near her. Not when you're like this."

Tarble growled and took a step forward. "You don't have the right to..."

"I have every right," Bulma angrily interrupted, "to protect a friend. Now, I don't know what's got your panties in such a twist, but until you get this out of your system, you're not getting near her."

"I would never hurt her!" he shouted, powering up slightly without being aware of it.

"You already have."

Tarble knew he had accidentally bruised Gure's arm when he had grabbed her earlier, and he really did regret that action, but he was too mad at that point to let reason lead the way. "Get out of my way," he threatened, closing the gap between them.

But Bulma stood her ground. She would have been lying if she said she was not at all nervous. Tarble was clearly in a state of turmoil, and it looked as though he would snap at any minute. He may not have been powerful when compared to his brother, but next to a small human woman, he was a powerhouse. If he wanted to attack, if he chose to take it to the next level, Bulma knew perfectly well that she did not stand a chance. All she could do was hope that either Tarble got himself under control, or that Vegeta would round the corner soon. Whether they happened or not, though, she would not stand down.

Tarble took another step forward, ready to move the Earthling by force, when a rough hand fell upon his shoulder and hauled him backwards. He was not even aware of what was going on before a fierce strike collided with his neck and brought him completely out of consciousness.

/

Tarble groaned as he opened his eyes. The light burned, and he quickly shut them again and turned his head away. He tried to bring his hand up to block the scorching rays, but much to his surprise, he could not lift his arm.

He tried a few more times to raise either of his arms, but when neither of them would give so much as an inch, he barely dared to crack his eye open again. It burned as he slid his eyelids apart, but he knew he had to do it. A couple minutes passed as his eyes fought to adjust, and it felt as though his head would explode from the pressure.

As his eyes finally found focus, his body went rigid. He recognized the inside of the gravity room almost instantly, and that was not so much of a surprise, but the straps on his limbs and body were. He had been completely restrained without any hope of being able to get up without being freed.

"What the hell?" he growled, fighting against the straps. It was completely useless, though. He could not move at all. He had no idea how he got where he was or how he had been restrained. The last thing he remembered was trying to get to Gure.

Gure had walked away from him, he remembered that. And Bulma had been there...right? Yes, she had been blocking him for some reason. Why had she gotten in his way? She said that she was...protecting Gure? That could not be right. Why would she need to protect Gure from him? He would _never_ hurt her! How could they even _think_ such a thing?

Once again he strained against the restraints, grunting with his efforts. The straps felt as though they were cutting into his flesh, but the idea of being forcibly held down was maddening. He felt like he was going to die if he could not get free.

"Don't bother," a dark voice growled. "You are not getting out of here any time soon."

Tarble could not help but shake in fear. The voice was recognizable instantly, and never had it sounded so dangerous. "Vegeta?" he timidly asked, turning his head to the side.

The elder Saiyan was on the far side of the room, glaring furiously at the restrained man. He honestly looked as though he was just barely able to control his rage. "You are lucky that you are alive right now, you son of a bitch," he sneered.

The sweat rolled freely down Tarble's neck and began to pool on the floor. "Why?" he asked, already frightened of the answer.

As had happened so many times before, Vegeta moved faster than Tarble could follow. However, the boot to his throat had more pressure and a much greater unspoken threat than Tarble had experienced. "Because," Vegeta darkly told the younger prince, "I told you that if you ever, _ever_, showed yourself to be a threat to my family, you would be lucky to be so much as a smear on these walls. And you, you miserable waste of space, threatened my wife." He lowered his foot half an inch more, compressing the younger man's chest to the point where Tarble could not breath at all.

Tarble opened his mouth as wide as he could, desperate to get air but failing miserably in his attempt. A small choking sound emitted from his throat as he struggled, but it was only from choking on his own saliva. Vegeta was not talking to him anymore, just watching as the younger prince suffered. After twenty seconds, he pushed down further.

The smaller man thought he was going to die. He could not breathe. He could not move. And little bit by little bit, Tarble became acutely aware of the loss of sensation in his digits. His fingers were totally numb, and his hands were following fast. His lips tingled, starved for oxygen, and his eyes bulged wide with fear,

_He's going to do it_, Tarble thought, staring at his brother in horror. _He's going to kill me, and he's going to do it slowly! Oh, God, what do I do?_

The hands and feet were numb, and that sensation spread up his arms and legs extremely quickly. Tarble continued to fight against it, but so far as he could tell, he was not actually managing to move a single part of his body, save his eyelids. Before he knew it, Table's entire body was numb up to the throat.

_I'm going to die,_ he thought, his vision fighting to stay. _I…I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Save me! Someone, anyone, SAVE ME!_

One last hard shove was forced against his chest, and suddenly the boot was gone. Tarble's entire body convulsed as he desperately gasped for air. Practically in seizure, the young prince tried to gain a grasp on the world around him. He had been so far gone for so long that his systems were barely online, and for a moment, salvation was worse than death.

"Can you hear me?"

Tarble barely registered the words, but he was just barely coherent enough to nod. Talking would have been far too much for him to handle.

"Good," Vegeta growled. "Here is what is going to happen to your life. You will stay in here from now until you are under control. You will eat in here. You will sleep in here. You will be completely entombed in this room without so much as a form of communication from your precious little wife."

Loosening up the straps, allowing the younger man up, Vegeta gave his brother one last sneer. "And I am not letting you out of my sight for one second."


	15. Chapter 15

Trunks glared up at the locked door to the gravity room. It had been over a week since that door had been closed, and there had not been a single moment of communication from the two adults within. One solid, miserable week since Trunks had been granted any access at all to his father. And as far as the little prince was concerned, that was one week far too long.

He was furious at his uncle. No, he was beyond furious. Not only had Tarble stolen his father from him, but the entire damn reason that they were on lockdown in the first place was because that obnoxious little Saiyan had threatened his mother. To Trunks, that alone was an unforgivable offense. It was bad enough when Tarble had verbally trashed his father, but _no one_ raised a hand against his mother and got away with it. He wanted Tarble gone. Gone from their house, gone from their planet, and gone from their lives.

The only thing that helped the little boy from going completely ballistic on his uncle was the knowledge that the obnoxious Saiyan was having the living snot beaten out of him on the other side of that door. It had been reassuring the first day. It had been sort of amusing on the second day. It had been tolerable on the third day. But from that fourth day on, Trunks had been livid with the entire situation. He had taken up his post outside of that door, and he had refused to leave for anything other than going to the bathroom.

From down the hallway, Bulma and Gure sighed. "You weren't kidding when you said he was devoted," Gure finally said, looking at the heiress beside her.

"Nope," Bulma quietly responded, her eyes never straying from her son. "That kid is surprisingly hard core with his loyalty. It's genetic."

"That I'll believe," Gure said with a soft smile. "Tarble is the same way. There were several times during our flight from our enemies where he could have walked away from me. In fact, there were a few where he _should_ have walked away. He would have easily been able to sneak away on his own if he had left me behind, but he refused to ditch me."

Giving her sister-in-law a reassuring smile. "Just like my boys," she affirmed. "Although, I'm pretty sure that my guys would be swearing at me while they saved my life."

Gure's eyes widened slightly. "Even little Trunks?"

"Even little Trunks," Bulma answered with a laugh. "He's not nearly as bad as his father and I are, but you would be amazed at what comes out of that boy's mouth sometimes."

While Gure's face betrayed some amusement, her usual giggle was noticeably absent. It had been for a week, ever since the day that the brothers had been locked away. She had put on a brave face when Vegeta had taken Tarble's unconscious body in his arms and told her what he was planning to do. She had known perfectly well that something like that would probably happen someday. Vegeta had pulled no punches when he had told them about Saiyan adolescence. Tarble becoming uncontrollable and violent was not a surprise.

But even with that warning, being suddenly without her husband was very difficult for her. She had been at Tarble's side almost all their lives. While she had not been cloistered as he was, she had rarely chosen to venture where he could not go. She had tried to go out with others a few times, but she had always ended up missing him and returning within a couple hours' time. He was always there for her, and she was always there for him. They had never been separated for even close to a week before. It was a miserable sensation.

Her sorrow had not been lost on Bulma, but the heiress was at a loss for what to do. It seemed no one in that home was happy. Trunks was missing his father, Bulma and Gure missed their husbands, and it seemed unlikely that either of the brother's was having a good time in that confined space. Everyone was feeling the stress of the situation, and Bulma honestly did not know what to do to fix it. She hated knowing that her family was feeling pain, but it was out of her hands.

"Come on," she eventually said, turning away. She was getting worn down just looking at her angry son. "Let's go make him his next meal before he starves to death waiting for them to emerge. Lord knows he won't come down on his own."

"Yeah," Gure softly agreed, sparing the shut door one last glance. "That seems like the thing to do."

Neither of them spoke a word as they prepared the food. There had been a lot of silence between them over the past week. Where in the past they could laugh and joke about their husbands' foibles, neither of them felt comfortable even bringing them up. And with their common ground forced out of their conversation, their conversations had come to a halt. They were still perfectly polite with one another, but that upbeat joy they used to feel had diminished significantly.

Still silent, the two women brought up the trays they had prepared. As they approached the still staring boy, Bulma forced a smile on her face. "Hey, kiddo," she greeted, alerting him overtly to their presence. "I know you don't want to go anywhere, but you've got to keep up your strength. Your father's not going to be in there forever, Trunks, and you know that he'll expect you to be ready to go when he does."

Drawing in a terse breath, Trunks nodded. "Yeah, you're right," he lightly growled. Keeping his eyes on the door, he asked his mother, "I don't suppose you've heard anything from him…"

"Radio silence," Bulma grimly answered. "Sorry, Trunks. I'm as in the dark as you are on this one. All we can do is sit tight and wait."

With an angry roar, Trunks slammed a fist against the solid door. "This _sucks_!" he screamed, finally turning toward his mother. "Why the hell can't we just kick Tarble out? Why do we have to put up with this?"

Frowning, Bulma set her tray on the floor and knelt by her son, placing a hand on his small shoulder. "Honey, you know why," she patiently explained again. "Your Uncle Tarble is going through some changes right now, and that's not something his can control. He needs help right now, and your dad is the only one who can really help him."

"Yeah, you said that," Trunks growled, glaring at his mother, "but I'm finding it harder to believe that, Mom."

"Honey…"

"No!" the child angrily interrupted. "Dad is not the only grown up who's strong enough to whoop Tarble's butt, okay? I mean, even if Dad, like, _knows_ stuff he has to teach him, why can't he come out for a while and let someone else keep him in there?"

With a sad look on her face, Bulma leaned forward and wrapped both arms around her son. "I know it feels really unfair," she told him, "but this is for the best. If your father thought there was another way to do this that would let him see you, you know he would have taken it."

But Trunks did not return the hug. He did not push her away, but his hands remained at his sides until she pulled back. "This still sucks," he said again, though his tone was significantly less angry.

"It does," Bulma agreed. "But you need to eat something, honey."

Trunks nodded and grabbed a single sandwich off the platter, barely nibbling on the corner of it as he once again assumed his post outside the door. With a tired sigh, Bulma got to her feet and went back to where Gure was standing, turning to continue watching her son watch the door.

"You're a good mother," Gure softly told her.

"Thanks."

Several minutes passed in silence without any of them moving or speaking at all. Trunks was not the only one who wanted to see the brothers when they came out, and it made it hard for any of them to walk away. They could have stayed there all day if nothing forced them to move.

None of them seemed particularly surprised when Goku appeared before them as though by magic. The cheerful Saiyan had been making fairly regular visits since the princes had been in their self-imposed quarantine. "Hey," he greeted, landing right in front of Bulma. "How's it going?"

"Same as before," Bulma responded, her eyes going beyond her friend to her son.

Goku let out a long breath and rocked back and forth on his feet. "So, no word yet?"

"None," Gure told him.

Nervously, Goku bit down softly on the inside of his cheek. "Do you think it would be okay if I popped in there?" he asked the ladies. "I have a couple questions I wanted to ask him, and if you don't think they'll mind, I could get in and out without having to open the door."

"Take a number, Kakarot," Trunks angrily bit out, his eyes never leaving the door. "I get to see him before you do."

"Trunks," Bulma softly scolded, "watch your tone."

The little boy growled, but he kept his more pointed comments to himself. He wanted so badly to take his aggression out on someone else, and at that moment he was understanding very well why his father would go hunt that man down whenever he was in a bad mood. Kakarot really did have an aura that screamed 'punch me' louder than any sign could have.

Bulma knew perfectly well what her son was thinking. He had the same look on his face Vegeta had whenever he was getting ready to take a swing at the happy Saiyan. "Goku," she calmly said, "I really don't think that's a good idea. If Vegeta's cut communication with the outside world, you know he has a reason for it."

"Like what?" Goku sincerely asked.

The heiress shook her head. "I don't know," she answered. "Probably to maintain a controlled environment. But if he's making it so we can't talk to him, then I really don't think he'll take it well if you just show up without an invite."

Goku frowned, but he nodded as he thought about what he was being told. "I guess that makes sense," he admitted. "But, do you think you could tell him to drop by or something when he's done in there?"

Bulma finally looked her oldest friend in the eye. "Tell you what," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder, "why don't we all go downstairs, I'll make us something to eat, and you can tell me at least a little bit about what you want to ask him? You know as well as I do that he's not going to just fly over for a social visit unless there's a good reason for it, and I'm your best bet at getting him to go at all."

Fidgeting a little, Goku looked between Bulma, Gure, and Trunks. They all seemed to have tension levels that were obscenely high, and he was uncomfortable with the idea of burdening them with his own issues. "That's okay," he slowly answered, his eyes lingering on Trunks. "I can come back later."

"Goku," Bulma replied, tightening her grip on his shoulder, "you've never been gifted at taking subtle hints, so I'm going to spell this one out for you. We are in desperate need of conversation around here, and Gure and I are not going to let you go home until you give us something to talk about."

The tiny woman floated up to look Goku in the eye. "It's true," Gure assured. "You've just become our hostage."

"Um, guys, I really should be getting home," the Saiyan insisted. "I told Chi-Chi I had to talk about something with Vegeta, and if he's not available, then I should probably go home…"

His sentence drifted off as he watched the heiress whip out a cell phone and dial it so fast that even he could not follow it. "Hey, Chich," Bulma happily greeted. "Listen, I know you only let Goku out of the house for a quickie errand, but I need a little help with something…yep, my thought exactly. Don't worry, I'll send him home in a couple hours. Thanks!" Bulma flipped her phone closed and smiled victoriously at the warrior in front of her. "There! Now you're all mine for a couple hours and Chi-Chi's okay with it!" She put the phone away and placed both hands on Goku's broad shoulders. "Now, to the kitchen. March!"

The poor Saiyan was so flummoxed that he found himself in the kitchen before he could really tell what was going on. "What the…how did you do that?"

Without missing a beat, Bulma put a kettle on the stove and began pulling out snacks. "Goku, I have been living full time with Saiyans for over a decade. Do you really think I don't know how to get them to move?" With no sense of ceremony at all, she tossed the food onto the table. "Now, you said you wanted to talk to Vegeta about something, and since you've shown up every day for over five days, it's probably decently big. So, what's up?"

"It's nothing, really," Goku quickly answered, trying to get out of his seat. "I can wait until Vegeta's got time."

"Nonsense," Gure insisted, opening a bag of cookies. "Now, be a dear and talk to us all about it."

Nervously, Goku glanced between the two women. "Guys, it's fine," he pushed, making a move for the door. "It's no big deal! Seriously!"

"But Goku!" Bulma pushed, checking on the tea kettle as it heated. "You seem to have a problem, and we just want to help! Now, you sit down and you talk all about it with us!"

"Gee, look at the time!" Goku anxiously cried out. "I really should get going. Wow, time flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? Well, this has been fun, ladies. We should do it again sometime!" And without stammering out another word, the Saiyan teleported away from the compound.

The kitchen was silent for a few seconds, and Bulma and Gure exchanged a glance before erupting into laughter. "Too much?" Gure asked, extending the bag to the heiress.

"Nah," Bulma laughed, grabbing a cookie and popping it in her mouth. "Let's face it, we needed to torture someone to relax, and really, what better way is there to torture a Saiyan than by asking them to talk about their feelings?"

"Nothing works better," Gure giggled, eating a cookie herself. "I thought that maybe Goku was immune to that, though. He seems so much more laid back than the other two."

Bulma chuckled and took the kettle off the heat, making the tea. "Oh, I learned long ago that Goku's as bad as the rest of them. He's infinitely more open minded than anyone else I've ever met, and he's happy to talk about just about anything, but if you really pay attention, the whole 'feelings' thing is never brought up." She poured their beverages and raised her cup in triumph. "Now, let's pass several hours by talking about what he might be hiding."

"Sounds good to me," the little woman laughed. "Goodness knows we need it."

For the first time in a week, there was merriment back in their home. It was short, but it was enough.


	16. Chapter 16

Tarble groaned as he woke up, his body screaming at him. Growth spurts alone were painful, and the training and fighting his brother was forcing him through was downright hellish, but if forced to choose the worst aspect of his fate, the Saiyan would have said it was being forced to sleep on the floor. The sub-level of the training room held housing quarters for one person, and the elder brother had no intention of forfeiting that bed.

It was not a surprise to the younger man to find the bed empty. Tarble sometimes wondered if Vegeta actually slept in the bed. It always seemed to be perfectly made, and after a full week together, he had never once seen his older brother sleeping. It was not for the first time that Tarble wondered when, if ever, his brother slept.

Stretching out each part of his body, Tarble slowly rose from his spot on the floor. It was the first time that he had been permitted to sleep until he woke of his own accord, and he was not going to let such an opportunity go to waste. Small mercies were few and far between, and the younger brother savored taking his time with his morning routine. His stomach grumbled, and with a small blush, Tarble walked over to the kitchen area.

A frown graced his features as he studies what his breakfast options were. The living space was clearly not meant for long term isolation, at least not for a Saiyan. Had he been alone, there would have been enough food to last for two weeks, but with two of them in there, the cabinets were practically bare. Either Vegeta was going to have to let him out soon, or things were going to get ugly.

With a small grumble, the younger prince grabbed one of the few remaining boxes of cereal from the pantry and emptied the entirety of it in to a large bowl. It was hardly enough to be a full and satisfying breakfast, but it sure as hell beat starving to death. Tossing the empty box into the trash compactor, the little prince opened the refrigerator to grab the milk. Unfortunately for him, there was not a drop left.

"Are you freaking kidding me?" he grumbled, glaring at the bare refrigerator shelves. "I have to eat my damn cereal _dry?_"

"If you had gotten up on time, you might have stood a chance at getting some."

Growling as he slammed the door shut, Tarble turned to face his brother. "Yeah, right," he sneered. "You totally would have shared with me."

"Of course not," Vegeta pointed out, a clear taunt in his voice. "But I passed on eating before I began training, and you could have easily taken it while I was occupied."

With a roll of his eyes, Tarble began to eat his cereal dry. "Sure. That wouldn't lead to a beat down."

"I never said it wouldn't," the elder of the pair replied with a smirk. "I am simply stating that the opportunity did, in fact, exist."

Trying to keep his voice low, Tarble grumbled, "I hate you," as he munched away at his painfully dry breakfast.

Filling a glass with water, Vegeta calmly responded, "A sentiment you share with the majority of the universe."

"We're out of food," Tarble abruptly said, changing the direction of the conversation. "I guess that means that we're done in here."

"Hardly," Vegeta snorted. "If you think you are getting off that easy, you are sadly mistaken."

"Damn it, Vegeta, we're going to starve to death in here!" the younger of the pair snapped. "I know you're a sadistic bastard and all, but are you really going to kill us both just to prove a point?"

Having drained his third glass of water, Vegeta placed his empty cup on the counter. "Stop being such a drama queen, you obnoxious little brat. If I wanted you dead, I would not be tolerating all of your pathetic little fits and would have slaughtered you long ago. And believe me, you have certainly made that possible outcome extremely tempting these last few days."

Without waiting for his brother to finish his sentence, Tarble launched his half emptied cereal bowl at Vegeta's head. Vegeta quickly launched his opponent to the proper training area, not wanting the living quarters to be destroyed any further than they already had been. It was a surprise to neither of them, though, as nearly every morning included some such event. Tarble's temper had been getting shorter by the day, and Vegeta was only too happy to goad him on into a fight. They had been at one another's throats for the entirety of the week, and neither one of them seemed to be willing to step down. Vegeta held a long history of such behavior, but along with his building aggression, Tarble had developed a more cutthroat attitude.

Two solid hours of fighting passed before Tarble collapsed to the floor, exhausted and spent. There was no grace or ceremony to the way the fight ended, and it had been just as abrupt as the beginning had been. Around the crumpled body, Vegeta circled, glaring down at the fallen Saiyan.

"Get up," he demanded.

Gasping for air, Tarble shook his head, trying to say without words that he could not.

It was not an action that was well received. With a harsh kick, Vegeta knocked his adversary across the room. "Perhaps I did not make myself clear," he coolly told him. "Get up."

"Can't," Tarble barely managed to pant out. "Please…"

Again, he was knocked around the room. "I do not believe that I left you an option," Vegeta returned. "In fact, I am certain that I gave you a direct order. Now get on your feet, you miserable waste of space."

"Ve…Ve…geta…"

A powerful fist rammed into Tarble's midsection. "I should have known," Vegeta sneered. "I should have known that you would be too pathetic to handle such a trivial thing. Perhaps I should let you out after all, since you are clearly too weak to be worth my time."

Mustering a small roar, Tarble rolled over and swung his leg at his opponent. It was severely lacking in force, and Vegeta did not even bother to block it. Still on his knees, Tarble tried to lunge at his brother, but once again was batted away with minimal effort. Slowly, he managed to work his way back up to his feet, and while his attacks remained feeble at best, he kept fighting.

Vegeta continued to taunt and harass the smaller Saiyan, but he his own punches were significantly pulled. Tarble was meant to be pushed to his limits, not simply beaten down. Well experienced in the art of psychological manipulation, he was easily able to goad his clearly exhausted brother into prolonging the fight.

On and on and on he pushed, driving the ill-experienced fighter to his breaking point and beyond. Tarble grew weaker by the moment, but Vegeta refused to let up. Blows from Tarble quickly proved to be not only weak, but inaccurate and uncontrolled. When he was hit down he forced himself back up, but each time took longer and longer than the one before. His vision began to blur and his breath was ragged, and soon he was falling more from his own weakness than his brother's blows.

Pressed far beyond his body's abilities, Tarble finally fell to the floor, completely spent. He lay beyond exhaustion, utterly unresponsive. No level of provocation could garner so much as a twitch from the younger one. Vegeta lightly kicked Tarble's fallen body a few times, ensuring that the younger of the pair was well and truly out. There was work to be done.

/

Tarble groaned as he awoke again, wishing that perhaps once he could wake up without such an urge. Even the concept of opening his eyes seemed to great for him, so he chose to keep them shut as his mind became increasingly aware of the world around him. Slowly, he drew a deep breath, trying to relax for as long as possible before being forced to greet the day.

His brow furrowed as his mind told him that something was off. Not quite awake enough to truly understand what specifically was wrong, he drew another breath, trying to find the flaw. There was definitely an aroma that should not have been there…what was it?

"Good morning, sleepyhead!"

_Oh, crap, he cracked my head_, Tarble thought miserably. _There's no way I could be hearing Gure's voice in here unless I had brain damage! Oh, God, what did he do to me? What if I'm paralyzed? What if I can never walk again? What if I'm trapped in my mind until the day that I die, completely insane from being locked away and unable to communicate with anyone? How could he do that to me? I hate him! He ruined my life! He…_

"Tarble, I know you're awake. You can open your eyes now."

Reluctantly, Tarble slid his eyes open, half expecting to be greeted by total darkness and confirming that he had been blinded. As the first rays of light hit his eyes, he hissed and winced. _Okay, so I'm not blind_, he sarcastically thought. Forcing his eyes open the rest of the way, Tarble slowly took in surroundings. With a start, he sat all the way up in his bed.

"Whoa!" Gure replied with a chuckle, catching her startled husband by the shoulders. "Take it easy or you're going to faint again!"

"Again?" the Saiyan hoarsely asked, trying desperately to figure out what the hell was going on.

Gure nodded and gently guided him back against the bed. "You were in a dead faint when Vegeta brought you out," she informed him. The tiny woman pointed to the bag of intravenous fluid that was attached to her husband. "We're actually quite impressed with how many of those you've powered through."

Still confused, Tarble raised an eyebrow at his wife. "I'm in our room?" he asked.

"Where else?" he wife gently teased. "Now, since you're awake, I assume you will want some of this." As though from nowhere, little Gure produced a tray overflowing with a scrumptious selection of food.

Tarble's mouth immediately filled with saliva. The week spent in the gravity room had hardly been filled with gourmet cooking. The food available was simple, and most of it quite bland. Actual food had been quite rare, and much of their sustenance had come in the form of densely packaged meals that were high in calories but tasted ultimately like cardboard. Such a feast as what lay before him seemed like the greatest treasure that the heavens could offer after that week, and he fell upon the food with an appetite that he had never before shown. Sitting on the side of their bed, Gure could not help but laugh at her husband's behavior. She had missed him dearly since he had been taken from her.

After satiating his hunger, Tarble once again lay back against his bed and offered his wife a gentle smile. "Well, if I'd known that this was what waited for my after I nearly died, I would have exceeded sanity and reason in my training a _long_ time earlier."

"You would not!" his wife laughed.

A frown appeared on the Saiyan's face at the statement, and he realized that he felt wounded by the statement. "You don't think I could," he said, clearly a statement and not a question.

Gure smiled a placed a hand on her husband's shoulder. "No, I don't," she honestly answered. "You like to stay safe, honey, and there's nothing wrong with that. But that does tend to make you err on the side of caution, and without something else pushing you to do otherwise, you really wouldn't go beyond anything you felt comfortable with."

"Like being locked away with a jackass for a week straight?" Tarble sneered.

"Or having a child say good morning to you while you're dealing with a new flow of hormones," his wife responded, her smile not faltering for an instant. "Which, honey, is why the jackass locked you away and forced you through your barrier."

Tarble sat up a little straighter at his wife's comment. For the first time since waking up, he realized that there was, in fact, a noticeable difference in the way he felt. He no longer felt jittery and anxious from being in bed. His agitation level, while still existent, was significantly lowered. No longer did his body feel as though it was keeping him trapped in a room to small for him to thrive. Muscles were relaxed, tempers were cooled, and for the first time in a long while, Tarble felt like a real person again.

"He did it on purpose," he realized out loud.

Gure nodded and cuddled up to her husband. "He says that until a Saiyan is pushed to his absolute limit, his body can't properly adjust to new energy. Basically, you have to reboot the system."

With a skeptical look on his face, Tarble asked, "He told you this?"

"Oh, gracious me, no!" his petite wife laughed. "_Bulma_ told me, and most likely translated it into far kinder terms by her."

Tarble looked down at the blanket bunched around his lap, unsure of what to think of his situation. The past few days had made him think of the seasoned warrior as nothing more than a heartless, soulless bastard, unconcerned for anyone beside himself. But from what Gure was telling him, Vegeta had been violent and deriding not for his own entertainment, but for ensuring that a necessary change could take place in Tarble's quick changing body.

"You know," he finally said after several minutes of private contemplation, "I really wish he had some way to 'help' that did not involve torturing me."

With a content little sigh, Gure simply offered her husband a hug. "I hate to say it, honey, but you kind of need it."

"_What?_" Tarble snapped, accidentally shaking his wife off.

But the petite woman seemed unbothered by the action. "Sweetie, whether you like to admit it or not, you are from a race that does seem to require some level of violence. We did what we could to protect you from the dangers in the universe, and I'm happy that you got to be as peaceful as you were, but I understand now that maybe it wasn't the best thing for you."

"Gure…"

"You have needed this for a long time," his wife went on, "and from what we are learning about your needs, on a genetic and physiological level, it seems my family did you a disservice. I know it is really hard on you, especially considering how hard the last few years were for us, but I for one am thankful that there is family available to help us as much as your brother and his wife have. Truly, we are blessed."

Tarble looked away, suddenly feeling ashamed of his actions. "I have not been gracious, have I?"

"Not lately, no," Gure truthfully told him. "But you were very gracious when we first got here, and you are going through something right now that has been known across the universe to throw a person's common sense and reason turn to dust. It will come back, honey. I don't doubt that for a minute. But for the next little bit, you will probably be, as our lovely nephew would like to say, a grumpy-butt."

"I'll try harder!" Tarble swiftly insisted. "I promise that I will no longer…"

But his sentence was brought to an abrupt halt when his wife's small hand covered his mouth. "Do not make a promise that you won't be able to keep," she told him with a smile. "Look, I know you'd like to go back to being sweet little Tarble, who was so shy that he would hide from the world all day if he could. But more than your body is changing, and that's a good thing. You're stronger now, and I'm not just talking about your body. You aren't afraid of the world. You stand up for yourself. You're more willing to try new things. You're growing up, Tarble, and that's a good thing. You're going to be able to better control your temper soon enough, but with the exception of that, these are good changes."

While her husband sat, still stunned, Gure once again settled well up against him. "Don't worry, honey," she reassured him. "You won't have to go through this _too_ much longer."

Relaxing slightly, Tarble wrapped an arm around his wife. "What do you suppose the odds are that he'll tell me what the hell the plan is _before_ putting me through hell?"

"Well, considering that he doesn't even tell his wife until after the fact," Gure answered, "and she's the only one he talks to, not very high." She hugged him slightly and looked up into his dark eyes, smiling. "But while he's been rough on you, you know he's doing it for you."

"Hn," Tarble quietly responded, returning his wife's affection. However, he could not shake one thought that kept running through his mind. If Vegeta was going to keep torturing him and claim it was for his own good, then damn it, it was only fair for _both_ of them to know the score. As soon as he felt strong enough to walk, he was going to march up to the senior prince and demand answers to his questions.

And he was not going to leave until he got an answer to every single one of them.


	17. Chapter 17

"Kakarot, leave me the hell alone!"

It had been barely two hours since the royal brothers had left their prison, and Goku had wasted little time in approaching the mercurial prince. Needless to say, after a solid week of being confined with an annoying younger brother, Vegeta was not in the mood to receive company.

"Come on, Vegeta," Goku whined, following the other man. "I just want to talk with you!"

"Absolutely not!" the prince shouted back, continuing to walk away. "Now get the hell out!"

The taller man frowned. "It's just a talk," he insisted. "It's not like I'm challenging you to a fight to the death or anything. What's the big deal?"

"The big deal," Vegeta growled, "is that I have spent an entire damn week with a person that I have had the grave displeasure of 'playing nice' with, and I am not about to sacrifice my freedom so you can talk about your issues."

But Goku was not about to give up. "Tell you what," he pitched, "how about you and I talk for a little bit, and then I leave you alone for at least a week?"

"How about you get the hell out of my house right now and avoid a broken jaw?" the prince snapped back. "Honestly, where am I losing you on this? I do not want to see you, I do not want to talk to you, and I do not want to help you with whatever the hell it is that has had you regularly harassing my family for the past week. How is this not clear?"

Goku frowned. "Why don't you want to help me?"

"Because I have better things to do with my time!" Vegeta shouted. "Now leave me alone!"

It was at that unfortunate moment that Tarble came walking down the hallway. "Vegeta!" he called out. "I need to have a word with you!"

The aggravated prince groaned. "You had a week to get a word out," he retaliated, trying to get away from both of the younger Saiyans. "If you did not feel it warranted speaking then, it can wait a few damn hours. Now would both of you leave me the hell alone?"

"Dad!"

_Will it never end?_ Vegeta whimpered in his own mind. "What, Trunks?" he asked his rapidly approaching son.

"Hey!" Goku and Tarble both snapped. "Why will you listen to him but not to me?"

A cocky smirk crossed Trunks' young face. "Because I'm his son and he likes me best," he gloated. "Now could the two of you go away so I can see my dad for a little bit? After all, we haven't had a chance to have any father/son time _at all_ for a _week_, and it would mean _ever so much_ to me if I could just spend a little time with him."

Tarble's eyes narrowed at his nephew. "You fight dirty," he accused.

But Trunks only smirked. "I fight to win. Now go away."

Taking a step back to look at the family, Goku shook his head. There was clearly still a lot of tension going on in the home, and perhaps his request could wait a little while longer. "Come on, Tarble," he finally said, "why don't you and I go out for some fresh air so these two can make up for lost time."

"But…" Tarble's argument died where it started, though, when he looked at Goku's gentle but concerned expression. "Yeah, sure. I haven't been out in a while."

"See?" the tall man encouraged. "A little sunlight will do you good. Get some color back in those cheeks!" Placing a large hand on Tarble's back, he guided the little prince out toward the back door, allowing the father and son a chance to speak with one another.

With a sly look on his face, Trunks crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "You're welcome for the rescue."

Vegeta glared down at his son. "I did not need 'a rescue'," he informed his son.

"Need? No," Trunks relented. "But since it got you out of having to convince Goku and Uncle Buzzkill to get out, I figure it should probably be a little appreciated."

The elder prince chuckled at his son's nickname for their latest family member. "You would have preferred if I had left him to starve in the gravity room," he stated.

With a casual shrug, Trunks pushed off of the wall. "Eh, starved, crushed by gravity, driven mad by isolation, whatever. It's all good." One purple eyebrow raised in his father's direction. "Any chance you'll let me haul him back in and see which one happens first?"

"Trunks," Vegeta warned, "you should do no such thing."

"Because Mom would blame you and we'd experience hell on Earth until we revived him with the dragon balls?" the boy snickered.

"Precisely."

With a laugh, Trunks shook his head. "Man, it has not been the same without you here," he told his father. "There's no one I can make fun of Mom with when you're gone!" After a few more seconds of laughter, though, a somber look came upon Trunks' face. "Dad?" he softly asked.

"Hn?"

The boy shifted his gaze to the wall and nervously rubbed the ball of his foot against the carpet on the floor. "Are you going to do this again? I mean, the whole disappearing for a week thing?"

Grumpily, Vegeta nodded. "There is a very high probability that this will need to repeated two to four more times."

"But why _you_?" Trunks blurted out. "Why do _you_ have to be the one to do it? It's not fair! Yeah, he's your brother, but I'm your _son_! He can get someone else to do whatever it is you're doing in there. You are _mine!_"

With a roll of his eyes, Vegeta leaned against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "Boy," he lectured, "for a Saiyan to progress to adulthood, he needs to be pressed far beyond the limits that common sense would allow. An outside aggressor is needed. Who would you have doing this in my stead?"

Trunks placed his hands on his hips and huffed. "What about Goku or Gohan?" he challenged.

"Would either of them force combat upon someone who was clearly exhausted?" his father questioned back.

The little boy frowned. "Maybe!" he stubbornly pressed. "You don't know!" However, after one quirk of an eyebrow from his father, Trunks scowled and added, "Okay, maybe you do know. But that doesn't make it fair!"

"Life is not fair," Vegeta coldly answered. "Anyone telling you otherwise is either lying or mentally deranged."

"What about Piccolo?" Trunks shot, trying to get his argument back on track.

Vegeta thought it for a moment. "He holds no knowledge of any aspect of adolescence," he sternly started, "but I suppose that there is a chance the Namek could prove useful in beating the crap out of someone. I shall consider it further before I give you a final answer."

"Yes!" Trunks cheered. "And what about Eighteen? Can't she kick his ass for a while too?"

But his father shook his head. "Miserable idea," he bluntly answered. At the questioning look his son gave him, Vegeta rolled his eyes. "Consider Tarble a teenager who has never been on a date."

"Yeesh," the boy responded, shivering slightly in disgust as he thought about it. "Eighteen would kill him before the end of day one…why don't we want that to happen?"

"Remember what we discussed earlier?"

Trunks nodded. "Oh, right. Mom, conniption, hell on Earth for us. Got it."

"Hn."

"Hey, Dad?" the child asked.

"Hn?"

"Can we train?"

Vegeta drew a deep breath before answering. Even though his family liked to joke about his living in the gravity room, it had been years since he had spent more than one full day in there at a time, and longer still since he had done a week straight. Combining that with the company he had been trapped with recently, he was not looking forward to turning around and going right back in. Then again, that meant that the boy had not trained seriously in an equal amount of time…

"You will meet me in there and be prepared to train in three hours time," he instructed his son. "Make sure that your system is well fueled for an intense session."

Trunks grinned from ear to ear. "Yes!" he cheered. "I'll be there!" With a giddy little laugh, the child jogged down the hallway and made a beeline for the kitchen. After all, he did have to fuel up.

As his son disappeared in one direction, Vegeta turned to head the other way. After all, it had been a week since he was free to do as he pleased, and the boy could eat a snack just fine on his own. The moment of solitude, however, was short lived as Goku appeared before him.

"Hey Vegeta!" the cheerful fighter greeted.

The prince groaned at the arrival. "Damn it Kakarot, did you not understand what I said earlier when I told you to leave me the hell alone?"

"No, I got it," Goku quickly answered. "You wanted to have a little time with Trunks. But I felt Trunks' energy move away from yours, so I thought now would be a good time to come talk to you."

"It's been five damn minutes!" Vegeta shouted back. "In case you are truly too much of an imbecile to understand this already, when someone tells you to leave them the hell alone, the do not want to see you for the remainder of the day. Minimum!"

Goku frowned. "Come on," he softly pleaded, "just give me a few minutes."

The prince of Saiyans growled deep in his throat. "Kakarot, I am going to spell this out for you as plainly as I can without breaking your feeble little mind. I have not seen my wife _at all_ in over a _week_. There are more pressing issues in my life right now than dealing with _your_ problems!"

"You know, I went seven years…"

"Sucks to be you," Vegeta bluntly interrupted, brushing off the taller Saiyan. "Get out. Try again tomorrow."

With a frown on his face, Goku watched the prince walk away. However, the message had gotten through loud and clear. Vegeta would not talk to him at all for the remainder of the day, and the best he could hope for was more patience in the morning.

/

"Are you kidding me?" Vegeta hissed.

Goku pouted slightly at the reaction. "What?" he asked. "You said come back tomorrow, it's tomorrow!"

"It's ten minutes past midnight," the prince shouted, "and I am _occupied!_"

The taller man could not help the slight chuckle that escaped him. "Yeah, I noticed." He barely managed to duck out of the way as a fist made its way quickly for his face. "I'm sorry!" he laughed. "Your energy was up in the middle of the night. I thought you were training!"

"_You thought wrong_!" Vegeta roared, taking another swing.

Once again, Goku managed to dodge. Normally it was at least a challenge to avoid a swing from the angered man, but as Vegeta was busy trying to keep the bed sheet around his waist, his fighting was taking a temporary slide. "So," the younger Saiyan laughed, "does this mean you're not up for talking with me tonight?"

"_Get the hell out!_"

"Okay, okay!" Goku defensively returned, jumping back. "I'll try again later!"

/

It was another three days before any two full blooded Saiyans occupied the same room again. Tarble was torn between his desire to know what was going to be approaching him and his desire to avoid getting his ass handed to him again, and the fearful side had won out. That initial determination he had held only until the painkillers wore off, and he had retreated to his room after that time, escaping only long enough to get food when he knew his brother was elsewhere. Bulma and Gure attempted to get the two princes to meet again, but both were stubborn and quite good at refusing any offer, bribe, threat, or means of extortion.

In the middle of that third day, Goku once again blinked into the compound, choosing to approach the younger of the brothers and scaring the living daylights out of him in the process. "Hey Tarble!" he enthusiastically greeted. "How've you been?"

"Trying to avoid a cardiac episode!" Tarble gasped out. "Is there not some kind of _warning_ for when you're going to do that?"

"Not really," Goku honestly answered. "I just kind of show up. If anything happens before I pop over, no one's ever told me about it." Glancing around the room, Goku frowned slightly. "Um, when was the last time you left this room?"

"Do you need something?" the shorter man abruptly asked, desperate to change the subject.

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Goku answered. "Is Vegeta in a better mood? I've been wanting to talk to him for a while, and I seem to be having issues with timing. Do you think this is a good time?"

With a scowl on his face, Tarble sat at the desk and turned away. "I would not know," he bitterly informed. "He and I have not spoken since he _dismissed_ me."

Goku nodded. "So since he told us to get the hell out? Okay, that's good to know."

Tarble's head whipped around. "Why are you acting so calmly about this?" he softly demanded. "Doesn't it bother you that he treats us as though we are just his _subjects_?"

"Not really, no," Goku honestly replied. "That's really just how he talks. If I took it personally every time he talked down to me, I think I'd never want to be near him again. Besides, that's just his way."

"Just his way?" Tarble balked. "He treats you like you are nothing more than dirt underneath his boots and you let it go because it's 'just his way'? How can you let him get away with it?"

With a gentle shrug, Goku took a seat on the corner of Tarble's bed. "Everyone has a way," he explained. "Gohan tends to explain things until no one else understand him, Krillen tends to make inappropriate jokes, my wife screams it all out of her system and then makes great food, and I tend to associate just about everything with food. Vegeta's way is a little more aggressive than most, but you just need to learn how to translate Vegeta-ese."

Tarble scoffed. "Why do I need to learn to speak Vegeta-ese?"

But Goku just shook his head. "You know what, Tarble? I feel really bad for you."

The adolescent looked away slightly. "Why?" he softly asked.

Again, Goku shrugged. "Well, for one thing, you really don't seem to know how to talk to people," he sincerely pointed out, "and that's kind of sad. I mean, because I know it means that you didn't really have friends or get to go out and play while you were growing up, and that can't be fun for a kid."

Tarble sat silently, listening to what he was being told.

"Plus," Goku went on, "you and Gure have been running around for a long time just trying to be safe, so it totally makes sense that you're always a little afraid of something bad happening. I actually can't think of the last time I saw you and you weren't scared."

"You startle me," the small prince sharply defended.

"Yeah, people tell me I do that," the taller Saiyan agreed. "But you know what makes me really sad?"

Tarble shook his head.

Goku lowered his eyes slightly, a rare move for the powerful warrior. "I think it's really, really sad that you and Vegeta have this great opportunity to be a family, but you've both been hurt so much by other people that neither of you really seems to be able to have a brother."

Tarble frowned. "Goku, I tried…"

"Tarble," the warrior interrupted, "I know you tried to have _a_ brother, but you're not taking Vegeta as Vegeta the same way he's not taking you for you. You both have this idea of how this is all going to work, and I don't think either of you are really trying."

His frown getting deeper, Tarble got to his feet. "Sometimes these things just don't work," he defended, though his voice lacked sincerity.

Also getting up, Goku shook his head. "Tarble," he softly explained, "fifteen years ago, I met my older brother for the first time. He was mean, and he was violent, and I wanted nothing to do with him. Then he took Gohan, and I wanted him dead. I wanted him dead so badly that I held him down and took a shot through the chest just to make sure he would rot in hell."

The smaller man fidgeted, getting uncomfortable with the story. However, he could not bring himself to interrupt.

"I didn't really think about it for a long time," Goku went on. "He was just another bad guy, just another villain that needed to be stopped. And that was how I thought about him for a really long time. But then you came around."

The cringe that Tarble gave was anything but subtle. "If I caused you any distress, I am sorry," he quietly said.

"Hm?" Goku responded, looking over at the prince. "Oh, no, it's nothing you did directly. It's just that, well, I keep watching you and Vegeta, and I can't help but think…could Raditz and I have had something like that if Frieza hadn't been around? Like, if he hadn't been in all of that, or he'd had time to kind of move on like Vegeta has, could he and I have been actual brothers?"

With a shamed expression on his face, Tarble looked at the carpet and played with it through his socks. "Is that why you've been wanting to talk to Vegeta?" he asked.

The warrior nodded. "Yeah," he admitted. "I know that I'm not going to learn that my brother was a great humanitarian or anything, but for the first time, I really want to know who he was. Vegeta's the only one alive who can help me with that, since I'm never going to get a chance to talk to Raditz myself." With a sigh, he shook his head. "I dunno, I guess I'm just a little jealous that you guys actually get a chance to try it out. If I got a chance to meet my brother again, I'd like to really get to know him. It's the only way I'd ever really know what my family is like."

Tarble looked mortified. "I did not know that you felt that way," he quietly said. "You're right. Vegeta and I aren't taking advantage of this opportunity."

"Well, you're doing what you can," Goku pointed out, looking a little more relaxed. "You're both kind of screwed up, so it's only natural that it's going to take time for you guys to get it right."

"Hey!"

"What?" Goku shot back. "You are!"

"Goku!"

With a small chuckle, Goku clapped his hands on this thighs and straightened himself out. "Well, tell you what," he told his companion, "if I can wait fifteen years to ask him about Raditz, I guess another few days won't kill me. So why don't you take the next couple of days to get to know him for who he is?"

Tarble frowned. "I don't think he's going to want to answer questions," he pointed out.

"So don't ask," the taller man counseled. "Just, you know, listen."

As the warrior once again blinked out of sight, Tarble carefully considered what he had been told. Perhaps Goku was right. Perhaps instead of trying to force an ideal upon his brother and being disappointed in a lack of change, he should simply listen and really learn what the other man was like.

It was worth a shot…


	18. Chapter 18

Tarble squirmed at the kitchen table. Another week had passed since he and Vegeta had last truly interacted. They had eaten meals at the family table together, and they twice sparred wordlessly with one another, but for the most part they kept as far from each other as they could manage. Vegeta's temper had never fully recovered from spending a week locked with Tarble, and Tarble's ego had not recovered from a week with Vegeta. And Trunks, still jealous at losing his father for a week, had been only too happy to throw fuel on that fire whenever he saw fit.

But that morning, Tarble was the first down to the breakfast table, and with the exception of his heiress hostess, there was no sign of the others. Gure had mumbled about wanting to sleep in, a luxury she had become addicted to since their arrival on Earth. Getting her up in time for breakfast was not an easy task, and Tarble had not been up for the challenge that morning. And Trunks and Vegeta had been training with one another every morning since the lockdown had ended, giving Tarble the mornings off completely. At first it had been a nice break, but the younger of the purebloods was starting to feel a tad neglected.

So there he sat, fairly bored and not certain what to do as he watched his sister-in-law program the machinery to make the morning meal. She was talking to him off and on as she worked, but he found himself zoning in and out of her words. There was just something about her that was making it difficult to focus.

"…and that's what we're planning to do today," Bulma wrapped up, standing up from her kneeling position and turning to the Saiyan at the table. "How does that sound to you?"

Tarble blinked, completely at a loss for how to answer. He had missed entirely what plan it was she had spoken of, but he did not want to risk enraging her by admitting it. Even if her power level was the lowest in the house, Bulma had proven more than once that she could, when pressed, be the scariest person in the compound. "Um, yeah," he finally stammered. "That sounds like a wonderful plan."

"Excellent!" the heiress cheered, pumping her fist in the air. "It's settled, then! We're going to the beach!"

As she bounded out of the room, leaving her creations to deal with breakfast, Bulma pretended to have missed the shocked look on Tarble's face. She had not missed his reactions during her set up, and she knew exactly what the problem was, too. Oh, Vegeta was going to have a field day on this one…

/

"Absolutely not."

Bulma pouted at her husband and tugged his arm persistently. "Come on, Vegeta," she whined. "It won't be so bad, and we could all use a day out of the house. Besides, it's only for a few hours!"

The prince hardly seemed appeased. "I refuse to go with you and those fools, and why you would think for a moment otherwise is a true testament to just how demented you really are."

"Your point is noted and ignored," his wife quickly answered. "Look, I'll put this in terms that will make this more appealing to you. If you go through with this, without making a scene or complaining, then I promise that for the next six months I will not poke or prod you into any parties, barbeques, beach trips, park outings, or other social gatherings, at all, unless there is a major event."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed at his wife. "Define major event."

"Gohan's wedding or the funeral of a member of this group. Oh, and Trunks' birthday. Anything else, I'll give you a get out of jail free card."

The prince considered momentarily. While he desperately did not want to go to the beach, it was an extremely tempting offer. That woman had gotten more and more interested in her parties, and even though he could usually get out them, it always ended up costing him. Still, the beach was one of his least favorite places on the planet. He would rather go with the woman and the boy to the _mall_ than the beach. "Sweeten the deal."

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Oh, for crying out loud, are you still making me bribe you with sex?"

"Is this a problem?"

"No, not really. Just making sure that you haven't matured at all since I first met you."

Vegeta smirked at his wife. "Right, because you have."

"Shut up," she snipped. "Fine, the standard sex clause is included in the deal. But only because you're about to have a big brother duty that's going to suck."

The smirk was gone in an instant. "What the hell are you talking about?"

It was Bulma's turn to wear a wicked grin. "Well, here's what's going on with little ol' Tarble…"

/

"Hey guys!" Krillen called out, waving to the incoming Briefs family. "Great to see you! Man, when was the last time we all got together?"

Vegeta snorted and looked away. "Not long enough."

The comment earned him a sharp elbowing in the ribs from his wife. "Shut up, you," she hissed. "You don't even hate Krillen. And remember, no complaining or you don't get squat out of this. Comprende?"

"I do not understand that last word," her husband growled, "but your point is made."

"Excellent." With a large grin on her face, she turned to her friend and gave him a hug. "It's been too long! Hey, do you have any idea when Goku's getting here?"

The former monk laughed. "Knowing our little Goku," he chuckled, "he probably found some little woodland creature to save and he'll be showing up in, oh, I don't know, two hours or so."

Near the back of the pack, Tarble squirmed and looked down at his wife. "Do you know what we're doing here?"

"Just what Bulma said we are, silly," his wife teased back, the majority of herself hidden underneath an enormous white hat. "We're here to enjoy some sun, have a picnic on the sand, and enjoy the tide."

Tarble glared subtly at the little woman beside him. "Other than sun, do you know what any of those things are?"

"I'm aware of what tide _is_," she admitted, "but this is as much a learning experience for me as it is for you. But from what I hear, picnics involve a lot of food, so that should be good. Now come on, relax a little!"

The little prince grumbled slightly as he folded his arms over his chest. So far, even though he had sincerely wanted to show gratitude for all Bulma had done for him and his wife, he was not having fun at the beach. It was very bright out, the ocean was loud, and, worst of all, there were _people_ there. That urge to flee was starting to creep up again, and he was not entirely certain he would be able to keep it in check for too terribly long.

Twenty feet away, Bulma smirked at her husband. "See?" she whispered to him.

But her husband simply rolled his eyes. "To me it only appears that he is disinterested in being here for the same reasons I am, save one."

"Give it time," his wife assured. "You'll see it."

Fighting back the smart ass comments that flooded his mind was hard, but Vegeta did not want to lose out on his end of the deal. In a few hours' time, he would be back in the compound, his sentence would be over, and he could tell that insane woman what, exactly, he thought of it all.

About an hour flew by with minimal incident. Krillen and Goku played in the surf with the children, the women hung back to talk with each other, and both Vegeta and Tarble did their damndest to pretend that they were anywhere else.

"Do we actually do anything while we're here?" the younger brother finally asked.

Vegeta sent his brother a bored look. "I would be happy to bury you neck deep in the sand."

"Why do I still ask you these things?" Tarble huffed.

"Because in spite of living with me for months," Vegeta crankily explained, "you are still yet to learn a damn thing."

Tarble opened his mouth to retaliate, but something caught him off guard. The women were getting up, apparently intent on making their own way to the water. One by one, they removed their loose covers, revealing their swimwear, and with it, their bodies. Both Eighteen and Chi-Chi were wearing one piece suits, but their legs were long and firm, and their tapered waists were hugged by the fabric. Bulma wore what, for her, was a fairly modest bikini. The bottoms had a little skirt covering her hips, but the top accentuated her breasts quite nicely.

The adolescent Saiyan's head tilted slightly to the side as the women walked away, unaware of the fact that he was staring intently at them. His brother, however, did not miss it for a moment. "Snap out of it!" he growled, slapping Tarble on the back of the head.

Tarble winced and grabbed the wounded spot. "What the hell was that for?" he demanded.

"For eyeing my wife," Vegeta bit out.

"I was not!" the younger of the pair insisted.

"Bullshit. Even the Namekian could have spotted that, and he doesn't even know what sex is."

Tarble slowly brought his hand down and grumbled toward the sand. "I was simply observing a part of our pack as it relocated itself."

"Right," Vegeta sneered. "That's why you were staring about three feet above your wife's head."

Eyes growing wide, Tarble realized that Vegeta was, in fact, right. He had missed his own wife, with her giant sun hat still on, entirely. "Well, she's short!"

"Hn."

A few more minutes went by wordlessly for both of them. Tarble was trying not to say anything or do anything that would get him in trouble with Vegeta, and Vegeta was trying to keep from tearing one limb at a time off of every male that was staring at his bikini clad wife. If Bulma did not get back to the blanket and cover herself soon, he could not be held accountable for his actions. It did not take long for him to realize that discussing his brother's scenario might just be mind-numbing enough to keep him from noticing each of his potential homicide victims. "Shall I simply assume that you have not discussed your most recent change with your woman?"

"What?" Tarble sputtered. "What are you talking about?"

The senior prince groaned. "Do not make this any more obnoxious than it already is," he commanded. "And I asked you a question that can be answered with a simple yes or no. So answer!"

Tarble looked away, staring intently at the sand he played with between his toes. "No, not really," he confessed.

Vegeta opened his mouth to scold his brother, but he found himself interrupted by a group of three young women who had approached. "Hey," one of them greeted. "My friends and I have seen you guys sitting here for a while, and we were wondering if…"

"Neither available nor interested," Vegeta interrupted, not even bother to look up at them. "Go the hell away."

"Vegeta!" the younger brother hissed. "There's no need to be rude!"

"Hn."

With a faint blush on his cheeks, Tarble looked up at the young women. They were quite pleasant for him to look at, and he found himself staggering over his words as he tried to form civilized conversation. "Please…my brother…forgive…not that bad…"

"Aw, you're so cute!" one of them interrupted. Casually taking a seat next to the younger prince, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and offered a dazzling smile. "What's your name?"

"T-tarble."

As Vegeta rolled his eyes and groaned, the girl simply giggled. "Tarble, huh? That's a new name. I don't think I've heard that one before." Subtly, she moved herself an inch or two closer. "So, Tarble, how old are you?"

Swallowing and trying to regain his composure, and fighting to not stare directly at the low cut bikini the girl was in, he barely managed to squeak out, "Forty."

The girl blinked twice before looking up at her friends and giggling again. "Oh, he's _forty_," she said in a teasing tone. "Of course he is. How didn't we see it?" Once more she turned to the younger prince, leaning in slightly further. "Well, I've always had a thing for older guys, so if you decide that you'd like to come hang with us, my friends and I will be just over there. Okay?"

"Uh…okay…" Still stunned, Tarble watched as the three females walked away, staring at them every moment until he felt a hand clamp down on the back of his head. "Hey! What the…"

"Aren't you forgetting about a large alfalfa sprout you call a wife?" Vegeta coolly pointed out, forcing his brother's head in the direction of their families.

Tarble's face flushed even deeper, and he stared down at the sand between his toes. "I was simply trying to engage in polite conversation," he feebly defended.

"Right," his brother sneered. "You are, after all, such a social person." He huffed slightly as he disengaged his hand from Tarble's neck, making certain to shove him a little as he did. "You need to talk to your woman and decide your next course of action."

Still staring at the sand, Tarble lowered his head slightly. "I will tell her of the changes," he admitted, "but I fail to see any actions I need to take. I will stay committed to my wife, whether we are sexually compatible or not."

Vegeta raised an eyebrow. "You cannot possibly mean to tell me that you plan to go the entirety of your life without ever having sex," he scoffed.

But Tarble simply shrugged one shoulder in response. "I refuse to compromise my loyalty."

"You clearly hold no grasp on exactly what your body is going to be going through," the elder of the two countered.

"I will adapt," Tarble assured, meeting his brother's look. "No matter what my hormones may tell me, no matter what urges may come my way, I will find a way to get by without compromising what I have with Gure. She is my wife, and I will honor that." He noticed his brother standing up, and sent him a hesitant look. "Um, where are you going?"

"If you intend to live your life that way," Vegeta grumbled, "that is your decision. But I refuse to be the one to inform you how to get by in that situation."

Tarble frowned. "You have information that could aide me and you refuse to tell me what it is?"

Vegeta did not even turn to face his brother as he began to walk away. "I refuse to guide you through this myself," he called out, "but I will get you our resident expert on going years without sex. If you demand anything more, I will take even that away."

The younger prince remained confused, watching his brother stalk up to Goku and signal for a private conversation. He watched in fascination as Vegeta seemed to offer a single sentence that simultaneously turned the taller warrior bright red and reduced the man to sputtering laughter. "What the hell?" he muttered to himself. Only seconds later, Bulma joined the two men, a large and knowing smile on her face. Tarble could not make out what was being said, but he had a feeling that it was at his expense, and he was not happy about it. For the first time since arriving at the beach, he got to his feet and left the blanket, joining the others in the water.

"What?" he demanded, putting his hands on his hips.

Goku looked over at him, grinned, shook his head, and looked away. "Aw, I can't do it," he laughed.

"It's you or no one," Vegeta casually responded. "I will not do it, and nothing will change my mind."

Bulma offered Tarble a sympathetically amused smile and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Hey," she lightly giggled, "why don't you come with me while these two talk a few things over?"

"No!" Tarble angrily refused. "They are laughing at me, and I won't let them do it!" With a whine in his voice, he turned to his brother and said, "Vegeta! You're supposed to help me!"

"The boy wants to know," Vegeta smoothly told his tall counterpart. "Would you leave him in his hour of need?"

Shaking his head again, Goku seemed to calm down a little. "Yeah, yeah, I'll help. I still don't really get why you want _me_ for this," he chuckled, "but if you send him over after dinner, I'll at least give him some vague ideas."

Tarble stomped his foot in the sea, sending a small wave riding down the beach. "I demand to know what you are talking about!"

By the end of the night, Tarble found himself wishing he had never asked.


	19. Chapter 19

Tarble sat on the dome of the building, looking up to what few stars were visible in the city sky. The only planet he had called home before Earth had beautiful clear skies, but the Saiyan had not been allowed to enjoy them outside. Keeping him cloistered was far more important than letting him have an unobstructed look at the sky. He had seen it through screens, and when fortunate, a window. But never had he gotten a good luck, until the day he and Gure had fled.

The stars were not all that clear in the city, but he found he still preferred being able to look with his own eyes. Even with the noises from the cars and the knowledge that humans were all around him, he still felt somewhat serene. It was not often that he found things in his life that were truly relaxing for him. Naturally a bundle of nerves, Tarble was usually as high strung as a person could come. But through time, training, and the odd reassurance that as long as his overbearing older brother was around nothing could hurt him, the prince was finally able to start learning how to feel at peace.

Gure floated up to the dome and landed beside her husband, a smile on her face. "Hey!" she cheerfully greeted.

Not for the first time, Tarble wondered how his little wife always managed to seem so happy. Unless they were in an unbelievably desperate situation, she was an upbeat and pleasant person. He had known her family, and he knew that it was not entirely a cultural thing with her people to be that way. She just happened to be a very perky person.

"Hi," he finally returned, looking back for the sky.

"You know," his wife mentioned, taking a seat, "Bulma says if we fly for about an hour to the south, we'll be in a spot where we can see the stars really clearly. You want to go?"

Tarble looked skeptical. "Are the others coming with us?"

"No, silly!" Gure giggled. "It would just be you and me!"

Frowning, Tarble responded, "I don't know if that's such a good idea. We're still not that familiar with this world."

"Well what better way is there to learn about it than by getting out there?" his wife playfully challenged. "We'll take a nice little trip with just the two of us, and we'll lay back and look at the stars together. Come on, it'll be fun!"

"No thanks."

Gure's smile faltered as she kept her eyes on her husband. "Why not?"

Tarble shrugged. "It just doesn't seem like a safe idea."

"But how?" Gure pressed on. "The only beings on the entire planet that could stand as a threat to us are our kin and our friends. What could possibly be so dangerous to us on a simple flight?"

"It's not safe!" Tarble insisted.

Lowering her head, Gure nodded. "Very well," she relented. "I won't make you go if you're really not comfortable."

"Thank you."

"But I'm going."

"What?" Tarble snapped. "Gure, I thought you understood me! It's not safe!"

"I did understand you," his wife patiently explained. "I understand that you're still afraid of the world around you, something that I guess makes perfect sense, considering how we brought you up. And if you're still too scared to try, I'm not going to force you to go. But," she went on, "this planet is not just a new experience for you. I'm new to all of this, too, and I really want to get out and see everything there is to see. So if you're afraid and you're not ready yet, that's okay. But I'm going to explore."

The prince sat there, stunned. In as long as he had known her, Gure had never really done anything without him. If he could not go somewhere, she would not go. If he could not do something, she would not do it. Somehow, it had escaped him entirely that she might actually want to try something. "Gure…" But he was at a loss, truly not understanding what to say next.

His wife, though, did not seem all that bothered anymore. "It's okay, sweetie," she spoke gently. "Just because I do something without you there doesn't mean anything. It's just going to be for a couple hours, less time that you usually spend training. And then I'll come back and we'll spend the rest of the evening together."

Tarble was still too shocked by his wife's boldness to say anything else as she gave him a pat on the shoulder and took to the night sky. He never even said good-bye. As his brain slowly began to come back online, he quietly slipped off the dome and down to the lawn below, walking in through the back door.

"Hey Tarble," Bulma greeted. "You are Gure going star gazing tonight?"

A nervous clearing noise sounded from Tarble's throat. "Um, she went. I decided to stay."

Bulma frowned. "What's wrong?" she asked. "Aren't you feeling well?"

"Oh, I'm fine," came the less than casual reply. The prince was definitely moping. "I guess if she wants to do something I don't want to do, she has every right to go do it."

Rolling her eyes, Bulma ran her fingers through her hair. "So, what are you going to do while she's out?"

Tarble sighed, taking a seat. "I don't know. Maybe I'll just read a book or something."

"Or you could try actually talking to your brother for once," Bulma casually said. "You know, bond with him without blood and damage to internal organs being involved."

The little prince's eyes grew wide at the mere thought of starting such a thing. "I really do not think that he would want to…"

"Of course he doesn't want to," Bulma interrupted, hauling Tarble to his feet and dragging him from the room. While Tarble might have held significantly more physical power, Bulma's will and persistence in the moment overwhelmed him to the point where he held no power. "But it's been months, and quite frankly, I'm sick of watching you two avoid each other. So you're going to come along with me, and you're going to sit down with Vegeta, and you two are going to have a real, honest to goodness talk with each other!"

As Bulma dragged her brother-in-law into another room, Tarble caught sight of his brother. "Run!" he shouted. "Save yourself!"

But Vegeta recognized his wife's stance, and knew that it was already too late. When the woman was in that mindset, there was no getting out of whatever she wanted. She had an agenda, and she was willing to fight dirty to get it done. At bare minimum, he knew he had to at least listen to what her demand was. Logic may help him after that, but prior to, it was pointless. "What is it this time?"

"You two," she grunted, continually dragging Tarble in, "are going to sit down and have a nice brotherly talk with each other."

Vegeta shot his wife a hard look. "Absolutely not."

"Oh, for crying out loud," Bulma huffed, shoving Tarble toward her husband. "You two need so freaking much therapy together that it isn't even funny. Here's how this works: you two are going to sit right here on this couch, you will each discuss your childhoods, you will find some sort of commonality in your respective childhoods, and that will be the starting point of some form of bonding between you two lunatics that does not involve attempting to beat the crap out of each other. Is that clear, you two morons?"

Tarble shyly looked over his shoulder at the heiress. The entire process she had just described seemed downright unnatural to him, and it certainly did not sound enjoyable. Was the woman mad?

His older brother seemed to share the same sentiment. "You're insane, woman," Vegeta bluntly informed her. "That might just be the single worst idea I have ever heard coming from your mouth."

"Really?" his wife challenged. "This is even worse than the time I pitched you taking Trunks and Goten for ice cream? Because that was, according to you, the worst idea I ever had. Oh, or the time I left you to baby-sit Trunks, Goten, and Marron for an entire afternoon? You said that was my worst idea, too. And we can't forget about the day I asked you to move in with me, because you've been telling me that was my dumbest move for over a decade now. Can you really tell me that _this_ is really dumber than _that_? Because frankly, I don't think this one's nearly as bad."

Vegeta glared at the woman and quietly approached her. He grabbed her firmly by her bicep and pulled her to the far side of the room. "I want you to try really hard to understand this," he told her, his voice low and serious. "Neither he nor I have any aspect of our youths that we would want to share with anyone, let alone each other. I was already a professional killer, and he was yet to set foot outside his overly sheltered home. There is, I promise you, no commonality there. There is nothing there. I do not wish to discuss my past, and he does not wish to discuss his. Let this one go, woman."

Bulma opened her mouth to retort, but she closed it fairly quickly. Her husband had a solid point. Even though he had never flat out spoken of specific moments of his childhood, she knew well enough that it was not pleasant. However, she had also figured out that Tarble had also had a troubled youth, and to her it seemed only natural that they might be able to bond over their ability to overcome such pasts. But as she had listened to Vegeta speak, she had realized that it was a fairly foolish move on her part. Her husband trusted her almost completely, they had lived with one another for many years, but still he was yet to be frank with her about his troubled past. Expecting him to do it with a brother he barely knew and clearly was on unstable terms with really was a poor move. "Sorry," she quietly mumbled.

"Hn."

"But you two still need to talk."

"No!" both princes replied in unison.

Frowning, Bulma put her hands on her hips. "I can admit that maybe talking about your boyhood years may not be the ideal outlet for you," she sternly lectured, "but that does not change the fact that you two are never going to get over this ridiculous stalemate of a brotherhood if neither of you are willing to open the hell up. Now Gure and I have been working on both of you for months, and we've been trying to be quietly supportive of you idiots, but enough is enough. I don't care what topic you decide to talk about, but if you don't sit down and start talking with each other about something, there will be consequences!"

Vegeta raised his chin haughtily and crossed his arms over his chest. "Do your worst, woman," he challenged.

"Oh, I will," she assured. "I'll torture both of you. If you two don't take care of this, I am going to walk around in nothing but my shortest cutoffs and a string bikini top until you get it done. I will eat lollipops nice and slowly. I will cook meals that involve a _lot_ of bending over. I will crank up the thermostat to ninety and cool myself off by running an ice cube very, very slowly over my hot, glistening, exposed skin, moaning in relief as that cool ice runs all over my scorching hot body. I will get both of you nice and hot and bothered. And I promise you, no woman in this compound will be putting out in any capacity while we're waiting for the two of you to talk."

The brothers both stood a little straighter as they considered the seriousness of the threat. Simply imagining what she was planning to do had put them both in an uncomfortable situation. But actually having to live through it? Without any real relief? That seemed like a fate worse than death. And maybe, just maybe, it was a fate worse than talking.

"We could try it," Tarble pitched, caving immediately.

Vegeta shot his brother a frown, but he knew when he was defeated. The woman was certain to follow through with her intentions, and even more desperately than he wanted to avoid that personal discomfort, he wanted to avoid having to explain to his son just why the boy's mother seemed to have lost her damned mind.

"You will pay for this," he firmly told her.

"I know," Bulma admitted. "I expect swift and brutal retaliation, and I know I've earned it. But for the time being, I have the upper hand, and I know you'll do what I consider to be the right thing." With a gently touch, she grabbed him in a soft imitation of how he had held her earlier, guiding him back toward the couch. "If you don't want me in the room, I do understand that. But you need to actually talk with each other, and not about fighting."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed at his wife. "I hate you," he growled.

"I know," she said again, a smile on her face.

She got the men settled and wished them luck, leaving the room to let them talk while maintaining ever intention of spying on them as they did. Vegeta knew perfectly well his wife would be eavesdropping, as was her style, but he opted not to tell Tarble. It was bad enough that he had to be aware of it. There was no way in hell they would be able to get through it if Tarble was aware as well.

"So talk," he commanded, refusing to even look in his brother's direction.

Tarble looked down at his hands, folded tensely in his lap. "What…what should we talk about?" he asked.

With a huff, Vegeta looked further away. "We could discuss annoying habits our wives have," he pitched. It was just about the only non-fighting topic he was even remotely comfortable with.

Looking up at the wall, Tarble subtly nodded. "I could do that," he agreed. "I have a couple of stories about Gure."

"Only a couple?" the elder prince scoffed. "You are far too good at repression, then."

"Well, she's a happy person," Tarble pointed out. "It's hard to get too much on someone who's always perky and happy and optimistic, even when you're really not in the mood to hear about it."

A small smirk appeared on Vegeta's face. "The woman is like that too often," he agreed. "It is almost as though they do not understand that sometimes a bad mood is something to relish."

"I know!" Tarble quickly agreed. "Sometimes it is just, like, leave me alone, I don't _want_ to be cheered up!"

Vegeta snorted. "And there is no winning when it is _she_ is the one who is in a mood. If you leave her be, as is the reasonable approach, then you are attacked for being callous. If you demand to know what her problem is, you are a bastard. If you completely avoid her presence, you are an ass for not paying enough attention to her."

Tarble imitated the noise his brother had made not ten seconds earlier. "Tell me about it," he replied. "Gure doesn't get that way a lot, but when she does, not even the gods can appease her. And it doesn't matter how bad my day was, it doesn't matter if the same bad thing that got her that way happened to me, she thinks it's my job to get her back in a good mood. Who would expect _me_ to be able to get someone in a good mood?"

"To be fair, if the only other option available is me," he brother countered, "then you would be the better option for that particular duty."

The younger prince chuckled lightly and shook his head. "I think an intergalactic terrorist would be a greater comfort and cheer than you," he teased.

"Indeed," Vegeta agreed. "One would think that after all these years the woman would have figured that out, but as I have pointed out several times, she is quite insane."

Relaxing in the mood of the conversation, Tarble found himself asking, "From what I have observed, that is part of the attraction between the two of you."

"Dangerous territory," his brother threatened.

Tarble stiffened slightly, muttering, "My apologies," before falling into silence. Cautiously, he asked, "If I ensure that the conversation remains focused on the flaws of our respective spouses?"

"Hn."

Their conversation did not last too long, only about ten minutes. But even though it still felt odd and awkward to them, and even though it was only for a short period of time, they did manage to get through the entire discussion.

From another room, Bulma and Gure smiled, watching them on a monitor. "I can't believe that worked," Gure giggled.

"I can't believe that Tarble didn't notice that you just flew in a circle and came right back," the heiress laughed.

"I'm not," Gure replied, her amusement clear. "You got Tarble good and scared, and when he's nervous, he can only focus on his immediate problem. I probably could have walked straight through the room they're in without him noticing."

With another laugh, Bulma gave Gure a sideways hug. "Thanks for your help in this."

"Don't worry about it," the tiny woman responded. "One way or another, we'll get them to be a real family yet."


	20. Chapter 20

Gure smiled as she watched the marshmallows melt inside her hot chocolate. "Even after all these months, I still am in love with this beverage."

"As you likely will be for the remainder of your life," Bulma chuckled, taking a sip from her own mug. "I've been drinking it for more years than I'd care to admit, and I'm still addicted to it. Not as addicted as I am to coffee, mind you, but addicted all the same. Well, also less than I was to cigarettes. Man, trying to quit those almost drove me to alcoholism."

The tiny woman giggled. "You are so funny!"

"Glad you approve!"

The two women quietly enjoyed their moment of tranquility. In the months since the arrival of Tarble and Gure, things had often been fairly tense in the home. Between the tensions of the two very different brothers, the jealousy of Trunks, and the sheer power possessed by all three of them, it was a wonder that the compound was even standing at all. Bulma and Gure had done what they could to make the living arrangements as comfortable as possible for all involved, but they could only do so much. Not to mention that Bulma's own legendary temper occasionally did the stress level of the family more harm than good, and Gure's almost incessant cheerfulness could just as easily sour someone's mood as well as it could bring joy. As such, the two wives had made the decision to set aside some time every week where all they were allowed to do was sit, relax, enjoy a snack, and joke about their family.

Things had been particularly tense over the past couple of weeks. Tarble was in the middle of a rather impressive growth spurt, and almost seemed to be changing from boy to man overnight. He was still smaller than his brother, and likely always would be, but it was clear that the younger prince was nearing his full adult height. Along with the growth had come a whole series of mood swings brought on by hormonal changes, swings that were not able to be well handled by anyone in the home. Vegeta lacked sympathy, which aggravated Tarble. Gure pointed out the so-called silver linings of them, which aggravated him. Bulma would break it down into a scientific context, usually followed with a request to run some form of test on him, which aggravated him. And Trunks just aggravated him.

Vegeta's lack of sympathy, or even tolerance, of the changes added another level of tension. And Trunks almost seemed to feed off of it. There were times where the boy would not seem so aggressive, as though he was finally adapting to the new family members. And to Gure, he was usually fairly pleasant and seemed to bear no ill will. But any time Tarble hit a new stage, and Vegeta felt required to spend time working Tarble through it, Trunks' jealousy would rear its head in ugly ways. That particular day he had been sent away to the Son's in a preemptive strike to keep what was sure to be a bad day at bay.

Taking a long sip from her cocoa, Gure gently asked, "How's Trunks been doing lately? I haven't seen him a lot."

Bulma cast a wary eye on the telephone. "Well, let's put it this way: I'm expecting to get a call from a slightly overwhelmed Gohan any minute now, with a hysterical Chi-Chi and baffled Goku heard clearly in the background, explaining to me that I need to send Vegeta, and possibly a sedative, immediately."

"Little tense, huh?" the smaller woman asked with a mild cringe.

"Worse," Bulma answered, rolling her eyes. "I wish there was more _I_ could do about it, but every trick I had up my sleeve failed. He doesn't know how to share Vegeta with anyone other than me, and watching Tarble be with him as often as he is just drives that boy crazy. I've tried spending more time with him myself, but in a weird way that seemed to make it worse."

Gure nodded sympathetically. "Probably a reminder that you're available and he's not," she sagely spoke.

"Probably," the heiress agreed. "So since Vegeta's not available, and seeing me more just reminds him that Vegeta's not available, I keep shipping him off to play with Goten. And I feel so guilty about that sometimes, like I'm a bad mother or something, but it's the only thing that seems to calm him down at all right now. I hate it."

"You're not a bad mother," Gure assured. "Don't ever think that you are. You're doing the best thing you can for your son in a difficult situation, even though it's not making you happy to do it."

Bulma smiled at her sister-in-law. "Thanks," she softly replied. With a groan, she pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. "No offense to either of you, but I can't tell you how badly I want this whole thing to be over. Once Tarble gets through this last adolescent push, maybe things will balance out a little more around here."

Gure nodded. "Actually, I've been meaning to talk to you about this," she responded. "I was thinking that after this next little bit is done, Tarble and I might take a little off planet trip."

The heiress frowned slightly. "Gure, you don't have to," she assured.

"Oh, I know that," the tiny woman answered. "I've just been thinking that it would probably do us all a world of good if there was a little space given between all of us for a while. After all, we did come crashing into your lives fairly abruptly, and we haven't exactly given your family any time since then. I think all of us, especially the boys, could use some distance."

Bulma still did not seem happy with the idea. "Not to be rude, but where the hell do you plan to go?" she demanded. "I thought the main reason you two decided to take a chance here was because you were out of options."

Gure looked down at her cooling chocolate, a slightly sad smile on her face. "We do not exactly have a luxury resort in mind, but there are plenty of places we could go to spend a little time relaxing. And honestly, I think just getting Tarble away from all of this will help him appreciate just what he's been given here. When we first arrived he seemed so much more thankful for this opportunity and everything it afforded him, but he's lost sight of it along the way."

"Well it's not like my husband and son have been doing a hell of a lot to help him feel at home," Bulma chimed in. "Honestly, I wish I could get those two to stop acting so juvenile about all of this. And Trunks needs to learn how to share his father."

"Oh, this phase won't last forever," Gure assured. "From what we've been learning, Tarble should reach a point where he will not require so much attention within a couple more months. After that, things should smooth out, don't you think?"

But Bulma shook her head, a mischievous smile on her face. "No, Gure," she explained, "Trunks _needs_ to learn how to share his father. He needs to learn how to share me, too."

The tiny woman quietly contemplated what was being said before her dark eyes widened with understanding. "You're going to have another child?" she squealed.

With a giggle, Bulma nodded. "But you can't tell anyone," she quickly told her sister-in-law. "The only other person I've told is Vegeta. I don't even know how to bring it up with Trunks."

"How did your husband handle the news?" Gure excitedly asked.

Bulma smirked. "Better than he handled the news that we were having Trunks, that's for sure," she chuckled.

"Really?"

"He's still on the planet, isn't he?"

An amused giggle escaped Gure as she took another sip from her drink. "Well, that's an even bigger reason for us to leave for a while," she pointed out. "The three of you really need to spend time with just the three of you until the new one comes along. I've never had a child of my own, but it is my understanding that things get kind of crazy when there is a baby around. The last thing you'll need is to have me and Tarble hanging around here, especially since neither one of us knows anything about taking care of a baby."

Though she did not particularly want to admit it, Bulma knew Gure was right. In fact, she had been contemplating the same thing since she had found out she was pregnant two days earlier. She just could not think of an even vaguely tactful way to bring it up. Normally kicking someone out was not an issue for her, but she felt oddly sympathetic to Gure and Tarble and all they had been through. The idea of sending them out on their own made her feel strangely guilty. In her mind, it was a blessing that Gure had come up with the idea for a break and was insistent on following through with it.

Swirling her dissolving marshmallows into her cooling chocolate, the scientist asked, "Have you talked about this with Tarble yet?"

"About leaving the planet for a while?" the tiny woman asked. "We've floated the idea by here and there, but we don't have any formal plans or anything. But from how our conversations have been going, he'll be thrilled to get some space. And don't worry," she went on, noticing that Bulma seemed ready to ask something, "I won't make it sound like the idea came from anyone but me. I know he'll get huffy if he feels like he's being kicked out, but let's face it, I was the one that put the idea on the table."

"Thank you."

/

Tarble warily looked at his older brother and took a tentative step backwards. There was something very different in Vegeta's energy that day, and Tarble did not trust it. However, no matter how curious he was, he was not dumb enough to flat out ask about it. Vegeta was, as ever, impossible to predict. Some days he took questions surprisingly well, some days they warranted snippy, short answers, and more often than not they got nothing but threats. If something was bothering the elder prince, Tarble would have to find out what it was some other way.

Besides, with Vegeta somewhat distracted, Tarble found himself able to hold his own slightly better in a spar. While Vegeta would always be the superior fighter by an impressive margin, the younger brother would have been lying if he said he was not enjoying the pulled punches. They certainly hurt less, particularly compared to the anger filled assaults that had been raining down on Tarble since he had made what might have been his largest mistake since making planet fall on Earth.

He had asked, and then insisted, that Vegeta describe their parents.

It was a mistake he was not likely to commit again for quite some time. The elder prince had demanded that his brother shut up and let it go, but Tarble's curiosity had temporarily outweighed both his common sense and sense of preservation, and he had pushed on. When warned a second time, a blessing Tarble had not counted in the heat of the moment, the younger of the pair had only felt oddly encouraged to keep trying. There was no third warning, though. Tarble woke up from that in a bed in the medical wing, and he had stayed there for three days.

No, he would not be asking that question again any time in the near future.

But for the first time since he had made that egregious error, Vegeta was not swinging with undue force. Something was certainly on the older brother's mind, and that curious streak Tarble was rapidly developing was once again rearing its head. He would not flat out ask. That would be tantamount to committing suicide. But there had to be a way to find out what was on Vegeta's mind, and Tarble was determined.

Unfortunately for the younger brother, that determination for answers kept his own mind distracted. The one advantage he had held at the start of the session had slipped completely from his grasp. "Whoa!" he grunted, barely ducking a blow.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Vegeta demanded as he continued to push on. "This is pathetic, even for you!"

Tarble opened his mouth, automatically prepared to apologize, but he managed to catch it just in time. His brother hated hearing apologies for what he considered to be meaningless things, and Tarble was in enough hot water already. Silently he tried to regain focus. Saying nothing at all seemed like the best strategy, and he was correct. His concentration back at least temporarily, Tarble took advantage of his brother's temporarily distracted state of mind and managed to get through the session comparatively unscathed.

He would have to figure out what the situation was later.

/

Gure literally hopped onto the bed, an action she had done every night since their arrival on Earth. There was a novel concept to the little bit of bounce that came with the landing that delighted her to no end. Things that she had not been able to enjoy in the years she and her husband had been pursued gave her a whimsical, almost childlike, bit of happiness. She knew it was juvenile behavior, but it was the little things that gave her joy in their safe new life.

"So how was your day?" she asked as her husband came out from the shower.

Tarble rubbed a towel around his hair as he shook off the remaining loose drops. "Odd," he honestly answered. "Vegeta was distracted, which is good because it didn't hurt as much, but really weird. I really wish I knew what the hell was going on through his head. Ever, actually." He glanced over at his wife, and his eyes narrowed as he noticed the sly look on her face. "You know what's going on, don't you?"

"Why, what would make you say that?" she coyly answered.

"Alright, out with it," her husband quickly demanded. "Tell me what the hell is going on right now, or else."

"Or else what?" Gure teased.

Tarble sat beside her on the bed, his face more serious than he actually felt. "Oh, I'll think of something," he threatened. "Now out with it!"

The tiny woman shook her head. "Nope, I'm not saying anything."

"Gure!"

"What?" she responded. "I promised Bulma I wouldn't say anything!"

Growing frustrated, Tarble threw his arms up in the air. "Are you freaking kidding me?" he shouted. "Gure, I know this is just gossip for you, but this is a matter of survival for me! If there's something going on that's bothering him, I need to know what it is!"

"He'll be mad at you if you bring up something he doesn't think you know about," his wife counseled.

"Exactly!" Tarble retaliated. "How the hell am I supposed to avoid a topic if I don't know what it is? Do you have any idea how many times I've been clocked by him for bringing up something he doesn't want to talk about?"

Gure frowned as she contemplated her husband's point. True enough, Vegeta had a tendency to overreact to just about anything worthy of a reaction. "Okay," she sighed. "But you absolutely cannot let anyone else know that I told you this, because I'm going to get in so much trouble if you spill!"

"I promise," the young prince swore. "Now come on, what's bothering him?"

"He's not bothered," the wife assured. "He's just adjusting to some news, that's all."

Tarble rolled his eyes. "Whatever! What is it?"

A little grin spread across Gure's face as she very quietly let the secret out. "They're going to have another baby."

To say Tarble was shocked would be an understatement. "They're…he…they…there's going to be…"

"I'll leave you to think on that," Gure casually told her husband. "I think I'm going to take a bath."

"Hang on a minute!" he shot back. "You can't tell me that and then go take a bath! I need to know more!"

Gure sighed. "Honey, how much more do you expect me to tell you?" she honestly told him. "They just found out they're going to have a baby. They need a little time to get used to it, and they need to give Trunks time to get used to it. I know this might sound a little harsh, and I want you to know that I don't mean it that way, but they have something other than you they need to think about right now. That's why your brother seems distracted." She let a long slow breath before adding, "That's why I think maybe we should take a trip for a little while."

Tarble frowned. "They're kicking us out, aren't they?" he accused.

"No!" Gure swiftly countered. "Tarble, you need to believe me when I say this. It was my idea, I brought it up to Bulma, and I pushed that we should probably do it. They had nothing to do with this decision. They're going to need a little time as a family, and honestly I think the break would do you, your brother, and your nephew a world of good. Get a little space, we'll all clear our heads, and we'll come back feeling that much better. So don't get upset at them, okay honey?"

With a sigh, Tarble nodded. "I guess. But where are we going to go?"

"We'll figure it out," his wife assured. "Just be happy for right now. One of your biggest dreams is coming true as we speak. Your family just got a little bit bigger."


	21. Chapter 21

Trunks sat tensely at the edge of the bed. There was something about the way his mother had told him to sit down and remain calm that was unbelievable unnerving. Being told to sit was one thing, but remain calm? There was no way that meant anything good. And her nervous demeanor was not helping him at all.

"Mom?" he finally asked. "Could you let me know what's going on? You're kind of freaking me out here."

Bulma shook her head out. "Yeah, sorry," she sincerely apologized. "There's just a lot on my mind right now." With a tense sigh, she took a seat in a chair across from her son. "Listen, honey, I know there's been a lot going on around here over the last few months, and I know it's been really hard on you."

Trunks let out a small snort, but otherwise did not respond.

"And I know you've been really looking forward to the day that it all goes back to how it was," she went on. "But, well, that's just not going to happen."

"What?" the child snapped. "You can't do this to me!"

"Trunks…"

"I was under the impression," he interrupted, "that they were going to be here _for a while_, not forever! Are you really telling me that I have to live with this until I'm eighteen and move out?"

Bulma's eyebrows drew close together. "Trunks," she began again, her tone more scolding than before.

But the young prince would not be silenced. "This is so unfair! I know I haven't been perfect or anything, but you can't seriously expect me to be calm about this! Why would you let them do this, Mom? Why?"

"Trunks!" she shouted. She had been hoping that it would not be brought down to yelling, but her son's loud complaining was not leaving her much of a choice. "Would you at least let me tell you what's going on before you have a complete and total meltdown here?"

While he wanted to continue his ranting, his mother's tone was enough to make the boy stay temporarily silent.

"That's better," she huffed. "Now if you'll hold your horses for just a minute, I think you'll feel a lot less outraged. You'll be happy to know that your Uncle Tarble and Aunt Gure are going to be leaving for a while…"

He was in the air pumping his fist in a heartbeat. "YES!"

"Trunks!"

The boy sheepishly sat back down. "Sorry."

It earned him a glare, but his mother went calmly on. "Anyway, it's not a permanent trip at this point, but it will get them out of your hair for a while." She paused for a moment and sent her son a look, almost daring him to cheer again. When he held his tongue, she continued. "That's actually not what I was talking about." She drew a deep breath. "I wanted to let you know that you're going to have a little brother or sister in about seven and a half months."

There was silence that met her, and it was not a comfortable one. Every muscle in the boy's body seemed to be tensing up. For a brief moment it seemed almost as though he was going to explode. He was obviously fighting to keep his temper in check, and it appeared to be a losing battle. The color in his cheeks grew rosy and boiled over into a hot crimson shade. His jaw was clenched so hard that the muscles in his neck were sticking out. The entire energy of the room seemed to take an angry turn.

Bulma frowned at her son's reaction. "Talk to me," she gently guided him.

"I…you can't…it's not…" Try as he might, Trunks could not seem to find a way to discuss his feelings without blowing up at his mother.

With a gentle nod, Bulma got to her feet. "Tell you what," she softly said. "I'm going to go downstairs and let you think for a bit. And whenever you're ready to talk, whether it'll be nice stuff or not, I will be there to listen."

/

When evening fell, the talk was done between mother and son. The heiress sat on her own bed, sitting patiently as she listened to the sound of the shower running. Her talk with the boy had been more eye opening than she had expected, and it had raised new concerns that she had not previously considered. So far, having a second child was much more difficult than she had anticipated.

The water turned off and Bulma braced herself for the conversation she knew they had to have. It had become a bit of a family tradition for them. Serious discussions were seldom held outside of the bedroom, and almost always took place after showers or sex. With her seated on the corner of the bed at his entrance, Vegeta had known that something was up, but she would not interrupt his rituals unless it was a matter of life or death. Her concerns were very real, but no one was going to die if she waited fifteen minutes to talk.

"Alright," Vegeta spoke as he entered the main room again. "What the hell are you going on about now?"

"We need to talk."

Her husband rolled his eyes. "Yes, that has already been established. Now out with it, woman!"

Bulma sighed. "We have an issue with Trunks."

It was tempting to roll his eyes again, but he resisted the urge. "We have been over this before," he explained. "I do allot time for the boy, but there are other needs that need to be met. I cannot be on call for every little thing."

"And that's the problem," Bulma pointed out. "Those other needs that need to be met? They're why your son almost went ballistic this afternoon when I told him about the baby." When her husband did not immediately respond, she took the opportunity to continue. "He sees the way you act with Tarble and thinks that being a big brother is a terrible thing." Again, he did not immediately respond, but this time she took umbrage with it. "Vegeta?" She pushed. "You need to let him know that it's not a terrible thing."

"What would you have me do?" he shot back. "Shall I lie to the boy? Is that what you want?"

Bulma sat stunned for a moment. "Vegeta…"

"You ask that I tell the child that such a thing is not terrible, and I know you well enough to know what you actually mean. You want me to tell him that there is good and fun in the task."

"No," Bulma defended, "that's not what I want you to do. But you need to know that he thinks being an older brother is a life sentence of hard labor. He's under the impression that his life is over now because he's going to have a little brother, and he's going to have to spend all his time teaching him and training him and making sure he's okay. Anything else in his life is going to take a backseat to the new kid."

Her husband scoffed. "Did you inform him that you and I will be stuck with those burdens, not him?"

"I tried to," she sighed. "He didn't particularly seem to believe me. That's why you need to tell him. You don't have to hype it up or anything, just let him know that having a younger sibling does not mean that his life is over. Reinforce that there will still be fun and games and Goten in his life. That's all I ask."

/

Trunks heard the knock on his door and scowled. "What?" he demanded angrily.

On the other side, Vegeta had to draw a long breath to keep his temper in check. The boy was upset, he had to remind himself. He allowed one free outburst for such occasions. "Boy, open the door," he commanded.

While he was still in a bad mood, Trunks was not directly upset with his father, so he obeyed. "Hey," he glumly greeted.

His father entered the room fully and glared down at the boy. "You need to get over this nonsense you have with your mother immediately."

"Fine, whatever," the child griped. "I'll go to Mom and tell her all about how happy I am that my life is over. I'll tell her that I'm absolutely thrilled that I'm about to get weighed down with all this extra responsibility. And I'll put a big old smile on my face when she tells me what a good boy I am for doing it. By the way, when I go on a killing spree in ten years, please tell the media that this was the moment that drove me to it."

"Duly noted," Vegeta replied. Still looking down at his son, he demanded, "Why are you so damn certain that this child means the end of your life?"

Trunks snorted. "Please. Ever since Uncle Tarble got here, all you've gotten to do is take care of him. You're so busy teaching him and training him that you don't have time for anything else. And I know you don't like it, because you've been grumpy the whole time. I mean, more than usual. So if you're here to tell me that it's not so bad, I'm not going to believe you."

"Then shall I point out how absurd it is that you think these situations are in any way the same?" he father shot back. "Yes, you are going to be an older brother. Yes, it comes with responsibility. But obviously I hold far more responsibilities with Tarble than you shall with your new sibling."

"Yeah, right."

Vegeta's eyes narrowed. "Watch it, boy," he warned.

Trunks flopped down on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "It's not just you," he pointed out. "Gohan's got all these responsibilities with Goten, too. He has to watch him, he has to teach him, he has to stop what he's doing any time Goten wants to show him something…it's like the reason Gohan has no life is because Goten's there."

"That boy is a freak of nature."

Trunks sat up at his father's words. "What?"

Vegeta repeated his statement. "Gohan is a freak of nature. He assumed responsibilities that were never his in the first place. It was not his job to raise that boy to the degree he did. He is one who feels guilt over things that are not his fault, and he assuages those feelings through work. Any normal child his age would have rebelled in his situation. He chose parenting instead. He's a freak."

"But…"

"Boy," Vegeta interrupted, "those tasks you are whining pathetically about do not go to the older brother unless there is something bizarre going on. Gohan takes care of Goten like that because of guilt felt over their father's death. And the situation between myself and Tarble can hardly be characterized as even vaguely normal. We were raised on different worlds, in different environments. We never met. Forty years later he randomly shows up and is need of assistance. There is no one else who can help him. Does this sound even remotely like a situation that you will have to deal with? Do you think this new child is going to disappear, that the Earth will be destroyed, and that several decades down the road he or she will seek you out?"

Trunks paused. "Um, I guess not."

"You guess?"

The boy rolled his eyes. "Okay, okay, the odds of that happening to me are slim to none."

Vegeta nodded. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over and he could get on with his day.

"But things are going to change still, right?" Trunks pushed on.

An obvious question, one Vegeta felt should not have been asked. "Of course they are, boy. You know that."

"So I still think it sucks."

"How can you know if it will turn out well or not when you have nothing real to reference?" Vegeta demanded. "We have been over this. The only two sibling sets that you are even slightly familiar with are abnormal ones. You cannot make even the slightest deduction of how your experience will go based off of such examples."

Trunks still did not appear to be happy about it. "So what, you're telling me that if you and Uncle Tarble had grown up together, you would treat each other differently?"

Vegeta rolled his eyes before answering. "Of course we would. Thousands of factors would have changed, thus altering our entire relationship. We would hold shared experiences. We would have common backgrounds. And I would not be the one in charge of guiding him through adolescence. Those alone would drastically change our attitudes toward one another. As we are right now, we hold almost no commonalities. No matter how much your mother may believe otherwise, that fact is unlikely to ever change."

"But what if this new kid isn't like me at all?" Trunks quietly asked. "What if he doesn't like to spar? What if he doesn't like video games? What if he doesn't like Goten? What if…what if it's a girl?"

Picturing a female with his power and combination of his and his wife's tempers was enough to send a small shiver down the prince's spine. "If that is the case," he answered, "then we are all screwed. It will not just be you."

That earned a small smile from the child. "It would suck, right?" he chuckled. "There would be dolls and tea parties and she'd want to play dress up and all that crap Marron likes to do." His lavender eyebrow arched slightly as an idea hit him. "If it is a girl, you think we could just give her to Marron?"

"No."

"But…"

His father cut in before the thought could be finished. "Take just one second to consider how your mother would react to your giving away of her daughter."

Trunks gulped. "She'd make me take her place, wouldn't she? Oh, crap, she'd be braiding _my_ hair and putting makeup on _my_ face! I take it back! I take it back! We can keep her!"

"A wise decision." Again satisfied that the conversation was complete, Vegeta turned to take his leave.

"Hey, Dad?" Trunks called out.

_Damn it!_ His father thought. "What, boy?"

The child dangled his legs off the edge of his bed, and his toes played with the carpet on the floor. "You think…you think that I could help teach the new kid how to spar? I don't want the whole job, but do you think I could help?"

"Yes." Straight up question, straight up answer. Once more he tried to leave.

"Hey, Dad?"

_Son of a…_ "What, boy?"

Trunks continued to pull at the carpet with is feet. "It's not all terrible being a big brother, right? I mean, there are good parts, aren't there?"

"A few," he conceded. "Is that all?" When the child nodded, Vegeta moved swiftly for the door. If the conversation held out for too much longer, his temper with the child's questions would snap. Such a thing would hardly make the talk seem useful at all.

"Hey, Dad?"

Vegeta's teeth ground together. If there was one more "Hey, Dad", the boy was going to be punished. He was not yet sure how severe that punishment would be, but so help him it would happen. "What?" he bit out.

Sensing that both time and temper were short in his father, Trunks sank back slightly on the bed before answering. "I know you're telling me this because of Mom, but I just want to say thanks for doing it. I don't think being a big brother will totally suck anymore. Kind of suck from time to time, but not total suck all the time. So, you know, thanks."


	22. Chapter 22

Trunks dangled his feet off the edge of the balcony. His aunt and uncle had left that morning, so he should have been thrilled. But there was something gnawing away at him about it, and the boy could not quite place a finger on it. It was almost as though he felt guilty about them leaving, but that could not possibly be it, could it? They had left because they wanted to, right? Not because of him?

Young as he was, the prince knew that there was probably at least a little bit of his influence in the decision for them to leave. He had never fully gotten used to Tarble's presence, nor had he ever intended to adapt to it. Tarble was an intruder, plain and simple. It was unreasonable for him to be expected to bow down to such an outsider, no matter what. And if that outsider wanted to treat him like _just_ a child, and to monopolize time on Trunks' favorite things, well then it was definitely for the best that Tarble and Gure left.

So why was he feeling so bothered by it?

Letting out a huff, the little boy swung his legs up and popped to his feet. He had spent the better part of the afternoon training with his father, but that had ended hours ago. Training had been halted. Dinner had been eaten. Showers had been taken, though upon inspection it would appear that Trunks' shower was more theoretical than actual. Life had moved on, and that was exactly what young Trunks had been praying for ever since his uncle had first showed up.

He sighed as he entered his bedroom and climbed under the covers. Something about the entire situation seemed wrong to him, and he could not shake that thought. He pulled his sheets over his head, childishly trying to hide himself from his problems in a physical way. But if anything that made it worse. Pulling the covers tightly, he grumbled to himself, telling himself again and again and again that it was not his fault.

By morning he was no more convinced than he had been the night before. As he sat at the breakfast table he put his head down. That nagging little voice was telling him not to make eye contact with anyone, and he held every intention of listening to it. Unfortunately for him, his mother was wise to what his actions met.

"What did you do?" she asked, taking a seat across from him.

Trunks looked at his lap and muttered, "Nothing."

"Liar." Bulma took a long sip from her coffee mug. "Seriously, what did you do?"

"Seriously, nothing!" Trunks insisted, still refusing to look up.

Bulma rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine, we can play that game." She took another sip before adding, "You know I'm going to find out in the end anyway. If you don't want to tell me what you did now, we both know that I can't force you to. And if you want me to get frustrated with you as I figure it out on my own, that's alright. You can just deal with my mood on the topic then."

The boy began to wring his hands in his lap. What choice to make? Admit what he suspected the problem was and deal with his pregnant, and therefore unpredictable, mother immediately? Or keep it to himself and hope that he might never have to talk to her about it, but risk her being livid and, as previously stated, unpredictable? There was no way for him to know in the moment which one would likely turn out better for him. Damn that unpredictability!

With her mood seemingly calm for the time being, Trunks decided to take a shot and hope for the best. "Mom, did they leave because of me?"

The heiress took another sip of her decaf as she thought about how to answer. While motherly instinct had her wanting to protect him and insist that no, it was not at all because of him, they would both know she would be lying. "Well, maybe a little bit," she settled on. "But the biggest reasons weren't on you."

"What were they?" He still was not looking up at her.

Bulma swirled her warm beverage. "I talked to Gure a lot before they left," she pointed out. "She wanted to give our family unit some space as we get ready for the new baby, and I think we were already for a change in routine. We've all been really stressed lately, and a little space can help with that a lot."

Without much conviction, the boy slowly looked at his mother, though his gaze fell upon her shoulder rather than her face. "So I didn't totally drive them out?"

"Were you trying to?"

It was a move that Trunks hated his mother using. It was one of those parent questions where there really was no good answer and he was almost certainly going to end up admitting to something that would get him in trouble. He could spot that it was a trap. He just did not know how to get around it.

His silence spoke more than his words ever could. Bulma had not been blind to the relationship the boy had with his uncle. There had never been true good tidings between them, only fierce competition for the few things they both wanted. They were opponents on every matter that had come up, and it had even led to bloodshed on more than one occasion. Trunks had wanted Tarble gone almost from the get go. A refusal to answer her question only intensified that knowledge. "I see," she calmly said. "It seems you won in the end."

"I wasn't actually trying to make him leave!" Trunks yelled, suddenly extremely defensive. "I just wanted him to back the hell off!"

"Why was Tarble here?"

Another parent question, designed to make the child figure the situation out instead of telling them directly. The boy wondered if she had a list of them hidden under the table. "Because those two doofuses from space were trying to kill him and Auntie Gure."

Bulma nodded quietly, but responded with, "That was why he _came_. Why did he stay?"

"Nothing better to do with his time?" the boy feebly attempted. One hard glare from his mother stopped that attempt. "He was here because he never really grew up and he needed to learn some stuff."

"And did he?"

Seriously, was the woman on mommy mode or something? She had not talked to him in such a way in a long time, and she had given it up as a regular practice when he was only about four. Normally she talked to him as though he was significantly older than he really was. It was getting annoying. "Yes, he learned something. He learned how to be a pain in my…"

"Trunks," Bulma warned.

"…butt." There were a couple cuss words he could slide in from time to time, but if his mother was in one of those moods, he was going to have to watch himself. That stupid pregnancy had made it impossible for him to know how to treat her. "He learned other stuff too," he mumbled, looking at the table.

Bulma took a sip. "Did he need help?"

Okay, if she kept talking to him like he was three, he might just lose it. "Yes," he grumbled.

"Did we help him?"

Trunks clenched his fists. "Mom, I've got to tell you, if we don't cut to the chase really soon, I might be locking myself in the gravity room for a while."

"Your father's in there," his mother pointed out.

"I don't care," the boy tensely responded.

Bulma sighed. Even she could admit that the pregnancy was making her act a little differently, though she remained convinced that her husband was exaggerating just how bad she seemed to be. "Trunks, the point I'm trying to make is that Tarble came to us as a person in need, and we helped him."

"Yeah, I got that," Trunks answered. "What does this have to do with what's bugging me?"

The scientist swirled her drink some more. "I am trying to get you to think about why you wanted him to leave so badly."

"I already told you, I didn't necessarily want him _gone_. I just wanted to get my own life back. Geez!" He threw his arms in the air in frustration, and he shot to his feet, immediately starting to pace around the table. "I know he wasn't a terrible guy, but would it have really killed the two of you to at least _pretend_ like he wasn't more important than me? I mean every freakin' day it was Tarble this and Tarble that and you need to help poor little Tarble! And I know, I know, he needed help. But he's a grown up, Mom. He wasn't a kid! He didn't need _that_ much help!"

Sometimes it was hard to remember how young Trunks was. He handled most things with an assertiveness normally found in someone twice his age, and a maturity level to match. But once in a while, the little boy acted, well, like a little boy. It was plain that he understood that his uncle had needed assistance, but it was still beyond him that an adult would need as much help as Tarble had needed. Bulma had always been aware of the tension between the boy and his uncle, and had more than once intervened in their competition. But for the first time, she realized that Trunks truly did not understand the situation.

"Trunks," she sighed, "I wish there was I way that I could show you just how much help your uncle needed when he got here. I wish there was a DVD I could pop in or a computer program I could run that could teach you about the different kinds of help that people need. But sometimes these things just can't be fully understood until you're a little older and a little wiser. I know it's a lame explanation, but it's true. When you're older, and when you start becoming a teenager and needing a lot of the same help, you'll start to understand some of the problems that he had and why maybe he needed as much regular help as he did."

Calming down slightly, Trunks sat once more. "I really didn't want to make him leave the whole planet," the explained again. "I just wanted him to go away for a little bit. Maybe move out, you know? But I didn't want him to leave forever."

"He didn't," his mother assured. "Trunks, trust me, we have not seen the last of your Uncle Tarble and Aunt Gure. They are out exploring right now, and yes, they are looking for a new home on another world. But that hardly means that they're never going to visit or that we'll never see them again. And you know what? I'll be that next time you see them, after you've had some space and a chance to grow on your own, you'll probably be excited." Giving her son a little wink, she added, "Especially since you know that they won't stay forever."

"Well, yeah, that'll help," Trunks admitted.

"Good." Bulma got up and stretched out her back. "Listen, I know it's a Saturday and you have the day off, but there are a couple of things I need to get done in the lab. I know your father's training, but your grandparents are around, though, so don't think you're unsupervised."

Trunks rolled his eyes. "Are you kidding me? You two know every move I've ever made, even when you're not there."

"Right," his mother chuckled. "Anyway, I should be back in a couple of hours. And if you need to talk to me, you know how to reach me." She gave him a kiss on top of his head before heading up the stairs to dress for the day.

Back in the kitchen, Trunks sat at the table and wondered when his uncle was coming back. Uncle Tarble really was not so bad, he supposed. In fact, from time to time he had been kind of fun. If that guy had just let the boy live his life the way he was used to, they might have even gotten along really well. Maybe his mother was right. Maybe, if they promised not to move in again, he could have a good time with his aunt and his uncle. Maybe they could get along and do cool things together.

With a little bit of bounce in his step, Trunks popped up from the table to get himself some food. After all, it was breakfast time!

/

Bulma sat on the edge of the bed, clearly signaling 'we need to talk' position. Her husband was a creature of habit, and with Tarble gone, he was likely back on his old schedule already. If that was the case, he would likely enter the room soon, leaving her with minimal waiting. Unsurprised, she watched him enter just two minutes after she had taken her seat, and immediately recognized his understanding of her position. "Go ahead," she prompted. "Take your shower first."

"I was hardly going to ask your permission," he chided.

"You never do," she responded with a soft smile. "That's why it's so much fun to annoy you by granting it."

It was not long before her prince emerged clean, and she pat the corner of the bed, commanding, "Sit." He glared at her, and she rolled her eyes. "It's not a command, it's a request."

"Liar." He sat anyway. "Out with it. There are other things I would rather do tonight."

With a chuckle, the heiress ran her fingers through his damp hair. "Oh, we'll get to that, trust me. But there is something we should probably discuss first."

"What the hell could there be a problem with now?" the Saiyan growled. "Tarble is gone, we are back to where we were, the situations we have been facing have been resolved. There is nothing to discuss."

Bulma rolled her eyes. "It's not a major problem, don't worry. I just wanted to let you know that Trunks might be a little off for a little bit."

"Of course he will," the prince responded. "There have been several changes to his schedule over the past few months, and as a child it will take a few days to readjust."

The heiress shrugged. "And that will probably be all there is to it," she admitted.

When she did not push it any further, but did not move to get into the bed, the prince knew that the talk was not over with. "What is it you _actually_ wished to discuss with me?" he demanded.

Glancing up at him, Bulma asked, "Are you upset that Tarble left?"

"No."

His answer was neither rushed nor defensive, just a statement of a fact. And Bulma was somewhat unsettled by that. "He's your brother, and you just got to know him. Are you really telling me that it doesn't bother you at all that he's going to be gone for about a year?"

"We share genetic material," Vegeta responded. "And while there have been a few items that have come up in the past months that we have been able to find commonalities, we will never form what you, or even he, would consider a 'brotherly' bond. We were strangers for forty years who were pushed by circumstance into spending an unbearable amount of time with one another. That does not lead to bonding. You are lucky it did not lead to murder."

Bulma sighed. She had been hoping that the two purebloods would grow close, but it came as no surprise to her that it had not happened. "So you don't miss him at all?"

Vegeta shot his wife a look. "He has been gone for barely more than a day. I am more relieved by his absence than anything else." When she opened her mouth to push on, he cut her off. "You hold in your head this fairy tale idea of us all forming one large family, and you need to stop that. Yes, Tarble and I are brothers. Yes, I am willing to acknowledge him as such. But these notions you carry of all of us getting along at all times makes me concerned for your sanity."

"I never said that you would have to get along all the time," she pointed out.

"You wished it," her husband countered.

Bulma groaned. "If I got everything I ever wished for, I'd have the same metabolism I did as a teenager." She reached out and held his hand. "I guess I thought that if I had a long lost sister, then even if I didn't get along with her while she was here, I would miss her when she was gone."

"And that is one of many things that make you both very different than me and incredibly naïve," her husband teased.

Bulma smacked him on the shoulder, but she was smiling. "Alright, alright, you're fine, I get it." Finally she began to move for the covers. "Now come on, let's get on with our lives."

He was only too happy to comply.


	23. Chapter 23

Tarble frowned as the planet in the window grew larger. "I'm not so sure about this."

"Oh, you'll be fine," his wife giggled. "We've been gone for a couple of years, and we're only staying for a week."

The Saiyan remained unconvinced. Over the past years, he and his wife had found a nice little planet to settle on, one full of various peoples who had lost their homes one way or another. They were a community that was self-built, and that suited the couple nicely. They had settled down, built a home, and were quite comfortable there. Gure used the equipment gifted to them on Earth to help not only establish themselves on their new world, but to keep in contact with Bulma as well. The ladies even had a scheduled time every two weeks when they talked, and in spite of the fact that the clocks on the two worlds were different, they made it work. They swapped stories, laughed about their husbands, and promised that someday they would meet again. And after a little more than two years, that was going to happen.

While Gure was quite excited about visiting Earth again, Tarble had practically needed to be dragged on the ship. He had fought to stay behind, almost terrified of the idea of returning to Earth. Their departure had been, from his perspective, abrupt. It almost felt as though they had abandoned the planet, rather than leaving for a trip. And when they had managed to find a new place to live, and that trip turned into staying away, Tarble had anticipated that more than a little wrath had been incurred. Gure insisted that through her talks with the human woman, she was certain that there was no ill will, and that good tidings would greet them. Tarble did not entirely believe her.

"Maybe I'll just stay with the ship," Tarble said. "Someone needs to watch it."

"No we don't," Gure calmly answered. "It goes right in that cute little capsule we've been keeping it in. Nice try, mister, but you have to see your family again."

The Saiyan pouted slightly. "I still don't see why I had to come."

Gure rolled her eyes. "Remember that part about them being your family?" she pointed out. "Besides, we promised we would be back some day, and that day has come. Now suck it up, you'll be fine."

Tarble shot a glare at his wife. "If I haven't mentioned it yet, may I just say that ever since we went to Earth the first time, you've had an aggressive vocabulary change and are a lot less sympathetic."

"I know, it's great, isn't it?" she teased back. "And for the record, you have told me that. Many, many times."

"Just wanted to clarify," the Saiyan sighed.

"Good for you."

Tarble shook his head and sat down. Seeing the others was not something he had wanted to do. Bulma had always been nice enough to him, and there were extremely few people in the universe who got anything other than friendship and goodwill from the likes of Goku, but it was no secret that Trunks had formed a bond that was adversarial at best with his uncle. The closest they had been with one another was civil. It had never been anything more than that.

There was no denying, though, that the person Tarble was most anxious about seeing was his older brother. There had been no communication between them since the tense goodbye, and even that was barely considered communication. In fact, their respective wives gave them grief over it for weeks. No matter what Tarble's original hopes had been, and in spite of the wishes of the wives, Tarble and Vegeta had never gotten truly close. They were simply too different. The severe lack of commonality had never been conquered, nor was it likely to ever be. In his time away, Tarble had only made mild improvements, ones he was sure his brother would be scornful of. And his peaceful habits were near certainly going to gain harassment. The calm life Tarble had wanted had more or less been achieved, and from what the younger prince had learned from his brother, it was a shameful way for a Saiyan to live.

"You know," Gure pointed out, "once upon a time, you would have given anything to get to see your brother."

"Once upon a time, he was nothing more than a legend to me," Tarble responded. "The stories about him scared me, but, well, he was still my brother. I wanted to get to know him."

Gure looked up and smiled. "You did."

"No, I didn't," her husband countered. "I met him, and I discovered his routines and habits, and I learned that he has a very territorial son and a wife who makes everyone's business hers, but I didn't learn anything about _him_."

The woman shook her head. Tarble's dream of an idealized family unit was probably never going to be achieved, a fact that Gure had realized long ago, and one that she had honestly believed her husband had understood just well. Their marriage was good, but they would never produce children. Their respective home worlds and peoples were lost to them and could not give them community. And with Tarble's only known living relatives being those on Earth, it seemed unlikely at best that there would be regular holiday type visits. But the prince sometimes seemed to believe that his fairy tale would come through in the end, making him that much more upset when it inevitably did not happen as he dreamed.

"You know," Gure tried pointing out again, "Vegeta might not have turned out to have been the brother you were necessarily hoping for, but all things considered, he has been good to you. He took us into his home and helped you quite a bit."

"_Bulma_ took us into the home," Tarble countered. "And considering that she took in Vegeta in the first place, the standards were not hard to meet."

Gure sighed. "You two might not have been chummy with one another when we left," she relented, "but can you at least admit that you weren't exactly enemies, either? He was not horrible to you, and I honestly do not know why you are showing this level of distress over the idea of seeing him again."

Tarble offered her only silence as his answer. He could not put it into words, for even he was not quite sure why he felt such a sense of dread.

Only a few house later they found themselves parking the ship in the large yard of Capsule Corp, and Gure had a wide grin on her face as the door opened. "Hi!" she called out once the door lowered, happy to see Bulma alone waiting for them. As she quickly descended the ramp, Tarble found himself reluctant to follow suit. It was not until Bulma called out for him to come along that he went inside the compound with the others.

Inside stood the rest of the family. Trunks stood quietly, his gaze hovering somewhere between his relatives and the floor. While Tarble was not entirely certain, he thought there was a sense of embarrassment in the stance. It was something the man did not remember having seen in the boy ever before. Little did the man know that his own posture was giving off a very similar vibe. His shoulders were slightly slumped, his weight shifted nervously from foot to foot, and he, too, was avoiding direct eye contact.

The two wives simultaneously rolled their eyes at the behavior before striding up and embracing one another. "It's been too long!? Bulma gushed. "How have you been? How was your trip? Tell me everything!"

Gure giggled. "We're good, the trip was uneventful, and there's really nothing new to tell since our last call. But what about you? You've borne a child!"

With a proud laugh, Bulma brought her toddler out from behind her leg. "Come on, Bra," she coaxed. "It's time to meet Auntie Gure and Uncle Tarble!"

The girl peeked up and studied the newcomers for a moment before whimpering and hustling as fast as she could to her father, seeking protection from the strangers. "Go," she meekly commanded from behind her father's calf.

As Vegeta placed a protective hand on his daughter's head, Bulma chuckled. "That's Bra-ese for 'I have sensed a threat on the territory of my parents' attention and you are to make it go away immediately'." She looked at her son and smirked. "It must be something in the water."

A hint of pink appeared on Trunks' cheeks, and his eyes went straight to the floor. With over two years to think about it, it was no secret to him that his behavior the last time his aunt and uncle had been stupidly aggressive and extremely childish. It had been a turf war that Trunks had come to realized in the past years was totally unnecessary. Tarble's stay, no matter how interminable it had seemed back then, had always been destined to be temporary. Trunks was predestined to win that fight. It had not stopped him from fighting it as hard as he could, though, and he was more than a little ashamed of his previous actions.

Gure smiled up at her sister-in-law and added, "Or maybe it's genetic. Goodness knows those two are hardly the only ones to exhibit such behaviors." Apparently it was Tarble's turn to look away ashamed.

Bulma laughed and clapped a hand on Gure's shoulder. "Come on," she chuckled. "Why don't you, me, and the kids go to the kitchen and we give these two a chance to catch up."

Tarble's shoulders shot from slumped to straight almost in an instant. Was his wife really going to abandon him that quickly? Sure enough, Gure was already laughing and walking out, leaving her husband to his fate. "But…but…"

"Give it up," his brother advised. "Those women will screw us over every time. Though at least in my scenario, I get an alternative version of that phrase that yields positive results."

"It's nice to see you again, too," Tarble sarcastically responded.

Vegeta snorted. "If not for the fact that you are clearly insincere, I would feel it necessary to point out that you would obviously prefer evisceration over my company."

Tarble shook his head and finally raised his eyes to his brother's. They were near the same height now, though Tarble remained leaner than his powerful brother. It was odd for both of them to look one another in the eye. In an odd way, it was almost unnerving. They were closer to being equals. Not in strength or speed or power, but as people. Tarble was no longer a lost adolescent looking for a father figure. He was a man in his own right, though standing next to his brother was not doing wonders to prove that point.

"I don't want to avoid you _that_ badly," he lamely explained.

"Just close to it?"

Tarble shrugged. "Well, yeah," he admitted. "What are we going to talk about other than that? You know we're going to be quizzed on it."

Vegeta leaned against the wall. "Then perhaps we should turn to the only conversational topic you and I have ever held any commonality on and discuss the more annoying habits of our respective wives."

"I can do that!" Tarble quickly responded, his face lighting up. When his brother raised an eyebrow at the response, he felt himself blushing furiously. "Sorry," he apologized. "I probably shouldn't be so enthusiastic about it."

Vegeta shook his head. "No need to worry. I am hardly going to report that outburst to your spouse, and it is one of the rare areas where I sympathize with the need to get it out of your system. You are not the only one married."

Tarble smirked. "It would appear that the struggle for dominance in a relationship spans the systems."

"You learned that last time you were here when my son broke your jaw," his brother pointed out.

Once again the younger prince blushed. "Why did you have to bring that up?" he whined.

"As is my understanding," Vegeta answered, "it is my inalienable right as a brother to point out every stupid thing you have ever done over the course of your life, particularly if I was involved in any way, shape, or form."

"You do that to people anyway," Tarble sneered.

It could not be denied, not that Vegeta cared. "Even more reason for me to do so."

Tarble pouted and slumped into the couch. "This isn't fair," he pointed out. "If I turned around and pointed out _any_ stupid thing you had _ever_ done, you would beat the crap out of me."

"Apparently another inalienable right."

With a groan, Tarble asked, "If, as the older brother, you are allowed to exercise these rights over me, then as the younger brother, do I not have the right to become as annoying to you as mortally possible?"

Vegeta quirked a brow. "Have you already forgotten what rights I have?"

From the next room over, Bulma smirked as she poured tea for herself, her son, and her sister-in-law. "You know," she chuckled, "I think they're finally getting this brother thing down."

"Took them long enough," Gure laughed as she took her cup. "Your prediction was spot on, though. All they needed was space from one another."

"It hardly took a genius mind like mine to figure that out," Bulma responded with a laugh. "Those two were spending so much time with one another that I'm honestly still shocked that the violence level was as low as it was. I promise you, if I had been forced to spend that much time with Vegeta in confined quarters with him constantly telling me that I'm weak and failing, I would have found some way to kill him with my own two hands."

Trunks quirked an eyebrow at his mother. "What?"

The heiress made sure Bra was secure in her booster seat before sitting herself down. "Don't sound so shocked," she told him. "And don't pretend you wouldn't do the same thing."

"No I wouldn't!" the boy insisted.

"Trust me, you would," Bulma calmly pointed out. "As you would if you were stuck in those conditions with Goku, Gohan, Goten, Chi-Chi, Piccolo, Yamcha, Krillen, Eighteen, Marron, Videl, Tarble, Gure, me, or Bra."

The little girl glared at her brother. "I get you first," she pouted.

Trunks gawked. "Oh, come on!" he complained. "What did I ever do to you?"

Gure laughed as Bulma explained, "It's not about what anyone's done, it's about being trapped with someone. It would put anyone at odds."

"And with those two, it was probably amplified," Gure supplied.

Trunks looked away. It took a moment for him to find the words, "I'm sorry."

Gure put her teacup down. "What for?"

The boy swallowed and kept his gaze away. "I know that I was totally immature last time," he quietly apologized, "and I really was a jerk. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry."

With a small smile, Gure reached across the table and put her hand on her nephew's. "Trunks," she explained, "you were never anything but good for me. You owe me no apology. If you owe anything to anyone, it's Tarble." Her smile grew a little more. "I'll bet he's got something to say to you, too."

"You think?" the boy shyly asked.

"I know," Gure assured, hearing a telltale noise signaling something needed to be pulled from the oven.

Bulma, too, got to her feet to field the treats her mother had gotten cooking. "Had the 'you damn well be good' talk with Tarble?" she quietly asked her sister-in-law.

"Yep," Gure giggled. "We'll compare notes."

"Of course."

As the women continued to laugh with one another, the two who had been in the living room entered. "What is going on in here?" Tarble asked.

Vegeta snorted and muttered, "If the two of them are conspiring, nothing good for us."

"Aw, isn't it cute how well he knows me?" Bulma said.

Before Vegeta could retort, Tarble pointed out, "Actually, I came to the same conclusion."

"You're just saying that to side with Vegeta," Bulma teased.

"Believe me when I say he is not," her husband snorted. "He would not change an opinion or claim something he had not actually accomplished simply to impress me."

Tarble crossed his arms defiantly. "That's true."

"He knows I would beat the crap out of him if he did."

"Hey!"

For the first time since the two had first met, they owed each other nothing. There was no obligation, no burden or forced agreement between the two. They were no longer teacher and student, nor were they in a mock father/son situation. Vegeta was not the keeper of skills and knowledge that Tarble required to thrive, for the younger had grown and matured enough to not rely desperately on the elder prince. In spite of the fact that both had been dreading the thought of seeing one another again since the moment their wives announced that the reunion would be happening, they had fallen oddly into sync. Never would they have a shared childhood or family experiences formed while growing up, but they had somehow managed to grow the formations of a bond.

Years would go by before either one of them would feel comfortable saying it out loud. But one way or another, they had become more than a necessity to each other.

They were brothers.


End file.
